Masquerading as a responsible adult

2010-06-13T16:38:00.000-04:00

Just want to curl into a ball

2010-03-22T17:07:00.002-04:00

Let's see if I can work this out:
First, late night, lost track of time and finally logged off at 4am... oops.
Then dreary day, and just felt like crap.
Very confused as to why I just wanted to curl up into a ball and shut out the world, then I remembered as I picked up the phone.
Today would have been my grandpa's birthday. It's still not hit me that he passed away in November. I mean, I saw him in the hospital in Rochester and I knew he was sick, but he was fine this past summer and then, well, he's gone. He's the one who was always the most encouraging, the one I was closest to, and the one I most wanted to make proud when I went to law school all the way out in Boston.
*mope*
But I couldn't stay that way, so I pulled out a friend and we rocked out some guitar. It's been awhile since I played that long, and it made me happy. Now to do some reading while playing. I'm not attempting much else.
Wow, I even suck at expressing how crappy I feel. I fail at life.

2010-03-17T12:00:00.000-04:00

Take no pictures, leave no evidence

2009-10-14T13:09:00.003-04:00

So, in response to a request from a friend, I shall try to keep my blog updated yet again. I'm not saying it will be as extensive, funny, or frequent as last year, but I shall try. I dunno, this year has just been more of a "yeah, I'm in Boston, and I'm not thrilled, but it's better." Last year I was crazy homesick. This year, I've learned that my real friends will be there when I visit, and that makes me feel a hell of a lot better.

I'll start this attempt with a re-hash of this weekend. Some of it will go to facebook, some will stay forever here contained for those who already have access and to those whom I will allow to see it. Likely no boys. Unless, ya know, I'm over them or they won't talk.

Thursday:

Travel: Went to property, drug my two (yes two, don't judge) suitcases to class with me then took a van to the airport. It was super easy, and I'm happy I found that mode. Got my requisite Sam Adams and read Cosmo to wile time away before boarding. Flights were super easy. I don't care what you say, I fucking LOVE flying. I may not follow all protocol (I have my MP3 on during take-off and landing), but it's for a good cause (I listen to "You can fly" from Peter Pan during take-off). A little bit of a long layover in Chi-town, but it allows me time for a nice, relaxing dinner. Grabbed Whitey's Ice Cream with the parents when they picked me up. Then just sat around home talking, basically.

Comprehension: Made fun of my brother playing WoW, but I really can't talk. But noone in my family knows I played, and they never will. But ya know, it's kind of nice to not be such an idiot on something my brother is so into. I mean, he'll say "Uldar" and I'll ask "Uldaron?" and he'll look at me like I'm *crazy*, but at least I have a working knowledge.

Friday:

Enemy territory: Visited a friend going to law school at Iowa. Yes, I wore an Iowa State shirt. Had a good chat. It's good now, it's cute that he's asking for advice on what would be good for a first date. (Of course I had to tell him what *most* girls would go for, a cheesy movie and dinner doesn't always cut it.) But to be able to do that and not feel insanely jealous, is good. I liked him for the longest time, and I think I figured out why, but it still feels good to be friends and have another guy to go for advice. Maybe it's not quite to the full extent that BT and W are, but it'll get there.

Pumpkin up the wazoo: Got into Ames and got to the place I was staying. She made pumpkin EVERYTHING that night. Well, maybe not everything, but there was pumpkin everywhere.

The Hangover: Finally saw it. It was hilarious, as everyone said, but I need to buy it/see it again so I can actually use the references. Like "I want a lucky charm to take home with me! However, he need not be naked in my trunk." (The needing to be naked in my trunk is in direct correlation with how hot he is, lol)

Saturday:

The big game: Tried to get a whole shitton of people to go to Welch Ave Station to watch the Iowa State game on Saturday morning. However, I was only able to convince a few (sick, home, sick and home, didn't get the text, at bf's babysitting a kid, washing their hair, etc...) to join. But it was still great. Pizza and beer, what more can you ask for? And honestly catching up with a few people you care about is better than the superficial "Hi, how are you, let's catch up sometime, but I don't really mean that I just want to save face."

Legitimate friends: That's one thing I've learned a lot about this past year. You have a lot of friends, but you only have a few where you can legitimately go away for months, then come back and feel like no time has passed. I love those, and I think this summer found a few more like those. E and J from the previous summer, for sure, and K from this summer. I love it.

So Saturday. After the game with E, J, and K, we left at halftime and K and I went to continue watching some more of the anime movie he started me on this summer. Yes, anime, it's wierd, but it's got enough going on, and enough "What the FUCK?" moments to keep even me entertained. Supper, tried to get more people to go to Zombieland with us, in the end only got A. Yes, only. Finally realized I am over him. If 18 1/2 is the best he thinks he can do, he has no right to try me again, even if he wanted to. But still, a little awkward, between K and A. But fun.

Then BEEER!!! At Olde Main. I'm glad people trust my gut instincts about alcohol. The Oktoberfest from OM was delicious. I don't care whether my taste in beer (darker, but no Guinness) should be switched with a guys, I know what I like, and I like Octoberfests (but no pumpkin, get that whore imposter of a beer out of my face). It got a little interesting. Somewhere in the middle the guys (who were once again joined by E) started playing the Penis game IN THE BAR. I love my guys! The game continued into my car, yelling out the windows toward cops. Fantabulous...

Sunday:

Boring, really. Finally got my cheese things at Cafe Beaudelaire, got a Monty Python Monopoly game after spending 45 minutes at the comic book store. Had my first meal at La Fuente. Yes, I went to Iowa State for 4 years and never went there. I think that deserves an award.

Monday:

Lunch with Kelly. Had a dog chew through my laptop charging cord. Decided I temporarily hate little yippy dogs. Drive home.

All in all a pretty good trip. You learn who actually really wants to see you, or at least get out of their room. I'm starting to hate it a little bit though, because while I'm still very much single, I have the guy that I like at the moment, but because more and more of my friends are getting boyfriends and they are ALWAYS around, it's hard to gossip just a little (I am a girl, after all) around the BF. It's weird. And one friend said she lost herself once during a relationship, and it may be happening again. Hope not, but I felt very pushed to the side for the very small amount of time I was there.

So now, for the overanalysis of le boy:

He'll keep in contact, every once in a while, but no calls. Neither of us really roll that way. But he came out for the ENTIRE day on Saturday. We talked forever, never really ran out of things to say, and when we did, it wasn't awkward. He told me things that I feel... weren't necessary, if you know what I mean. Like, I don't have to know the details of how well or poorly he did his first semester back, it will not make me think any more or less of him. And what he's doing to make himself a better... person? Does dancing make you a better person? He felt bad when I mentioned a guy that had kept in contact with me, by calling, and said he was sorry he hadn't done so (but no calls so far). Little bit of angling during the movie, but we were whispering too, so it made sense. He unwaveringly trusts my judgment in beer. He had never tried the two beers he ordered Saturday, but because I was all for them, even though I even hadn't tried once, he was all for them (and liked them, so I guess it works out). But then as I dropped him off, all he said, was "See you when I see you." WTF?

So there it is. Let me know what you think. Ask about the trip. Whatevs. If you need more info, I'll be happy to provide it.

Grammar people of law school, "untie!"

2009-10-01T13:53:00.002-04:00

This was TOO horrible not to post asap.

I'm in law school. You'd think this would mean that the correspondence we receive through the law school would be of a respectable grammatical quality, right?
Nay, nay. For I received this gem this morning whilst I was browsing in class:

Do You Still Need to Purchase a Textbook?
In preparation for next term, we will begin returning unsold textbooks

The Tufts Health Sciences campus Bookstore will start to return unsold New England School of Law textbooks on Thursday October 8, 2009

We know there may be titles not assigned until later in the term or you were holding off on purchasing a recommended title.

Please stop by The Tufts Health Sciences Bookstore or log onto whywaitforooks.com to purchase your textbooks by October 8,2009.

If you have any questions please contact the bookstore team?

Contact your store manager, Nicole Dube at 617-636-**** (To protect the innocent. And believe me, they need it!)

There are at least 3 errors in there.
I don't know why I would want to wait "fo rooks." I don't even know what "rooks" are. Chess?
Then a spacing issue, easy to miss, but I'm not giving them any slack today.
Then..... then... Are they really that confused about whether we should contact the bookstore team if we need help? Do they doubt their qualifications or ability to help us? Does this bookstore team actually exist? What if we choose the wrong answer? We could sit here all day deciding whether we are or are not supposed to actually contact the bookstore team.

May God have mercy on your souls, the "bookstore team?" of Tufts Health Sciences camupus Bookstore, may God have mercy on your grammatical souls.

See photo album

2009-09-12T16:07:00.001-04:00

I don't really want to write a big post about last weekend, so in lieu of that, I just really annotated my FB photo album from Philadelphia. So check it out, comment to your heart's desire, etc.

Catch ya on the flip side.

So it continues...

2009-09-01T15:03:00.006-04:00

It lives! After nearly 2 months of not posting, I am back. Not that I have a ton to report, but I will type a ton just to be sure I get everything out. THIS post is the one where EVERYTHING comes out, because only people who really want to see it can. Which means... I've deleted the auto-post and the link from FB. Enjoy!

So there I was. In a Starbucks. Next to a Dunkin' Donuts. Which was across from a Starbucks. From which you could see the next Starbucks not half a block away and which was kiddy-corner across a block from the next Starbucks/Dunkin' Donuts conglomerate.
You think I'm making this shit up?! Go back and look at the countdown album from last year. It's sick.

But I suppose I should fill you in on the end of summer. It may wax poetic a bit, but I'm not really sorry for that. This year didn't end as dramatically as last year, but that doesn't mean the summer was any less fantabulous, just a bit less drama-filled. Which was good. This summer was also the summer of putting things in the past. Mostly it was specific guys that I was leaving. HS crush, dude-across-the-hall/fuckface, the best friend and last summer. I won't really go into details, but let's just say that each of them got a demotion, some further down than others.

I wonder if I every filled ya'll in on fuckface. Nope, it appears not. Well, after I unceremoniously rejected his smarmy ass, I saw him around a LOT. A lot a lot. In the hall around K and D's rooms, when we were up LATE playing an unmentionable computer game, invited himself into one of C's parties, etc. He was never asked to not come around, but when he saw I was at the parties, after a few minutes he would leave under some pretense and not come back. Which I wasn't too upset about. The thing that caused the major demotion was one night K, C, A and I were playing foosball downstairs, having a drink or two with it, and he came around with a CHEAP bottle of rum. Drunk as a skunk and apparently high to boot. Really just a general creep-o that night. And I found out later that he stalked one of my friends back to her room to the point that she felt she needed to go to her boyfriend to make him go away. Sorry guys, what hell have I wreaked? But he's gone. Don't know whether he's still in Buchanan, but it's unlikely that I'll have to be down that hall while he's there anyway, or at least down my his room. K's up a floor and C is only half-way down the hall. yay.

Oh, I suppose I'll give you the other 3 guys. After seeing HS crush in the water up to his knees begging, even though he's basically married with a kid on the way, I was able to put him in the past. When A started going after an 18 (and a half) year-old that no-one in our group likes or thinks has any redeeming qualities (not my words, words of a dude, I swear), I realized that if that's all he thinks of himself, I'm better than that. And N. The guy I've like for SO LONG. He stopped by the end of summer and we hung out for a night, and it felt more like I was talking to Will. I was telling him about K, and pictures, and he was saying about he was excited for the high girl-to-guy ratio where he's going to be living this year. I still love him dearly, but I think I may finally be moving on. Probably why I hung on so long was because he was the only one who knew about fuckface. Now many people know and are ecstatic that I kicked him to the curb. One of many theories, I suppose.

But moving on. I've noticed that each summer is kind of defining. With the exception of right after freshman year, each summer has had a theme. After Sr. yr of HS, finishing FFA, 4-H and getting ready for ISU. Soph yr was the lost summer where I learned a lot about how I work and deal. Jr yr was the time I had a job I LOVED, writing for the local paper, and I kicked ass at it too. Sr yr was the stereotypical get drunk/party/rock out, and this was putting things in the past.

But back to this summer. Epic, once again. Made new friends, hung out with the old, didn't have the week-long binges like last year, avoided most boy drama, got a tan, worked out, shot off fireworks...

OK so fireworks deserves it's only paragraph. Got fireworks down in MO, but didn't shoot a ton of them off until the 4th. The 4th my family always goes to the farm of a family friend, to cook out and watch and catch up with lots of people, and of course watch the Grand Mound fireworks. When I was little the guys wouldn't let the girls shoot off fireworks and it was all so controlled. Now, most of the "kids" have grown up so when I showed up with my bag of fireworks, the guys just handed me a propane torch and said "Have fun, we're taking turns!" I love how things have turned out.

...dorked out again. I love hanging out with the kinda dorky guys, what can I say? Why I'm not more into computers or science or own an Xbox is beyond me. We went shooting again... when I finally get a more permanent place, my targets (both paper and the laptop screen) will be up on the wall. Bowling. Bowling was fun. I need to do it more often.

I also picked up on the most random tidbits of information this summer. Some of them good, some of them dorky, and all of them rather interesting. For example:
1. When I am driving, (which won’t be for much longer) I keep thinking on the cloverleaf exits that if I were in a bike race, I would be penalized or kicked out for going over the line. Doesn’t mean it still doesn’t happen.
2. In chats, such as on Facebook or Gmail, I now find myself typing / to start talking, and pressing esc. to make the chatbox go away. I won’t say which game that is from, but it’s a certain often-mentioned, often-dissed (including by me until recently) online game.
3. In relation to the last one, I woke up after a dream about me killing phones to “aquire,” like, the cords or something and to make them stop ringing. However, there was an actual phone ringing in real life… the wake up phone call. Fml.

But I suppose you want to hear about school, eh? It's school, you know how it is... Oh wait, you wanted more? *huff* fine.
T'was a curious drive out to Boston. Eating crap for the last week (Jeff's at 2 am anyone?) I was in Ames then not eating at all because of nerves = no good. It rained a lot. I drove some. Whatevs.

But I'm "moved in" with a fantastic friend from last year. I quote "moved in" because the girl whose room I'm moving into hasn't gotten her stuff out, which I can deal with, but I'm way excited to get it all neat and clean and... it'll be fairly sparse, but I've learned to deal with less for now. I'm not really in the picture-taking mood right now, but I may break that because of wanting to show it off. Like: "See, I can be domestic, just not when people tell me to be, so you can go make your own damn sammich."

The commute's not bad, about 45 minutes, which now that I have my mp3 back up and running with a podcast to catch up on, it should be even better.
The school continues to be FUCKING FREEZING. It was not even September and I already had a fucking sweatshirt in my locker to I wouldn't pop up in goosebumps and more less than 10 minutes into class or during my study marathons in the library.
Class you ask?

Business organizations I have with Finneran, the prof I had for contracts last year. It's pretty boring so far, but she's entertaining enough to keep us awake. I keep calling that class contracts still though, but my friends have learned what I mean.

Land Use is with Bobrowski, also another professor from last year. He seems a lot more into this class than he did property, maybe because we actually want to be there. But the class is going to be a lot about zoning, so I'm going to try to keep the fact that my dad is the, well, County Zoning Administrator back home under wraps. I mean, it'll help me on the paper, but I don't want him thinking I know things, because I don't really. That's right, awesome me, being humble... such an odd moment, I know...

The last class with a professor from last year is Evidence with Hansen. Not bad. Nothing much to report.

Admiralty. Very excited about that class. I know, what's a chick from Iowa doing in a fucking admiralty class? I don't know exactly. It might be to brag, it might be to be weird. Either way, I'm happy.
And the damn writing and research class. I HATE IT. THAT IS ALL.
But I'd forgotten how insanely *tired* law school makes me. And partly it's because I get horrid habits over the summers, staying up til 4, sleeping til 1:30... But all the reading and research now... just makes me more tired.

But the fact that I am amused by the most random things keeps me a little bit more awake. And that my professors are entertaining. Like in evidence, when Hansen said “Every town has a nut, and unfortunately, every nut has rights.” I know ALL about the town yahoos. In Calamus, there was a guy who blogged that a frog had told him to put an anti-psychotic drug in the town watertower because they were all crazy. A frog. And yes, true story. I think he’s in a “facility” now, and all the better, because along with all of that he had a video camera set up in his front door, which was right on main street. Creeper.

Then there’s the lady that tried to tell half of Clinton County that my dad didn’t exist. Pretty sure he does, or I’m also crazy and an immaculate conception. There’s a 13 year age difference from my oldest aunt to my dad, so someone who knows ‘Laina may not have known my dad when they were in school, but he exists, I swear, just got an email from him…

But I feel like this year is going to fly by. It's already the second week of school, and with me already planning Christmas vacation (Ames for at least 2 weeks total, anyone in?) and other things, I certain hope things go fast.

Random tangent alert: Another thing summer does to me is make me lose my handwriting. I work so hard on it over the course of the school year, then I rarely handwrite during the summer. And yes, I am one of the fairly rare breed who always take notes by hand. There will be some exceptions, of course, such as Land Use, where all the cases are online, but otherwise by hand. What can I say? I'm old-fashioned.

In other news, I am a dork. Of the Oddest variety. Why I didn't go into computer or design is beyond me (still). I love the odd guys, casual gamers, and I, as a girl, always feel I must prove my worth against the boys in games. But this next tidbit takes the lego-themed wedding cake.

(ummmm... want?)

I love this song. I was introduced to it mid-summer by K, and every once in a while it'll pop into my head or get sent to me and it's lodged in my head for awhile. But this most recent time I'm glad it happened. It finally got a highly repetitive Ben Folds song that the nearly non-existant 3rd roommate played about 20 times over 2 days. le sigh. I am a dork. But I'm more than ok with it. And December will bring even more nerd-dom. 1 word. BlackAcre.

And there's more to the BlackAcre story, of course. Blackacre is the fictional plot of land that is constantly getting traded when you're talking about property in law. And it will be the name of my new character in WoW. Yes, I play wow, I won't even try to deny it anymore. It was so I would have something to do this summer instead of watching my boys play and be so annoying just sitting and watching over their shoulders. And it doesn't hurt that the guy I currently like, K, is/was big into it. I learn a lot. I apparently like to listen to lectures from guys. First N, now K. Ah well, I am a girl, I suppose.

So all is well on the roaming ctina front. I promise I'll be back in Iowa. I think one of my things making me want to go back so badly is that I'm so fiercely loyal to my friends. I'd not be who I am today without them, so I want to be there for them like I feel they were for me.

So yeah. That's going to be all for now. An edited version will go on FB, but yeah.

All will be well

2009-07-20T17:21:00.003-04:00

So I think I finally have this phase of my life over with. After two entire years of hating myself for what I did with fuckface, I have finally talked to him face to face and made peace. Although I think part of this is because I now have the power over him. Which is completely ironic.

So you may or may not have heard about the one-night-stand I had with the guy from my class a couple years ago, where technically I said yes, but it was one of those things that I hated...

But this weekend apparently I grew a pair of large, golden balls that I've needed for the last 2 years. I was planning and attending a frat party, but met up with some friends who later kidnapped me from said party after I returned. By then I was fairly drunk and decided I needed to finally deal with this horrid memory head-on. So I started texting him, telling him we were at Cys. He showed up, and we talked for a bit.

Now please, do not yell at me, because I know that I put myself in this situation. But still. Continuing.

I should have known. I should have gotten the hint while he was trying to take my hand and lead me out of the bar, but I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. Got back to Buchanan eventually, after running into Josh, Andy and Jailbait outside of the frat. I thought I was making it extraordinarily obvious with my body language that I was not going to do anything, sitting backwards on the chair, crossing my arms, etc. But no, he kept pushing and pushing and moving my arms so that he could kiss me and such. He was saying that he actually liked me and was all in, I was cute, etc, but by this point in my life I'm so jaded all I could hear was "Blah blah blah I'm a man whore and I want to get laid tonight." So finally after I forced him off me and grabbed my purse, I got out of there and went home. He kept texting me, telling me to come back and "talk," but no, I stayed away. And in the morning, after waking up and coming to a few more of my senses, I sent a nice (hopefully) text saying something like "I do believe you, but even if you are in it for more, I'm seriously out. Sorry." I don't believe him, but as the one with the power now I felt like I had to be a bit nice.

So yeah. I don't go around trying to gain power over guys, but the two who did have the slight bit I couldn't get rid of, I've taken down in a 1-2 punch the last 2 weekends. I think I can move on now.

But it's still weird. The guy I currently like in the immediate vicinity and I are friends, but there is no way I'm going to put myself out there. But how ironic, that I'm so afraid of rejection that I'm the one doing all the rejecting lately?

All my ex's live in... Iowa. fuck

2009-07-14T03:23:00.004-04:00

Where to start? Well, I guess it's safe to say that this post is going to be completely vague and go in lots of circles, and isn't going up til the people who want to know or should know what's going on do. I should also say that due to the very private and secret nature of this one, I've decided to stop importing to Facebook. So if you read this, you are now in a very elite category of people who... actually care!

It all started in November 2007. Got drunk at a tasting at Cyclone Liquors, with a friend, ran into a guy from class, shit went down, I ended up hating what I had done (and you can all reasonably guess that that was, technically I said yes, but I wasn't really ready) and so I stopped calling, stopped answering, I handled it horribly, but the only way I knew how. I knew I wasn't ok, but as long as I avoided the whole situation, I was ok. I even got everything out of my system by venting *everything* to a very close group of friends, so I thought I was progressing.

Then last Monday night. Random guy stopped by my friends room to see what the ruckus was about. It took my about 4 seconds to realize it was fuckface, and only 2 more seconds to retreat to the connecting room and commence freak-out.

I should be over that, I should not have freaked out like that, that was nearly 2 years ago. But that started and ended so badly and abruptly and I was not prepared to see him that I just didn't have time to rationalize my reaction. And now I saw him more in 2 days than I had in a year and a half. And now it sucks, because I have to look down the hall to make sure he isn't there or prepare myself for the first contact. I need to get over it. Not forgive, but move on.

Speaking of moving on. Anybody here go back home for their hometown festivals much? I have been there most years except last year, when I didn't go home from Christmas to August. Then this year. Then this year...

K, or any other members of the SATC group, if you haven't gotten what I will refer to as THE story, stop reading. If you have, then continue, this is just a recap.

You know how we all have that high-school fantasy, the one where you dream that it would come true, but you know it never will? And you also know how at the beginning of a night where you plan to get drunk, you make the joking statements about what you might do or wish would happen? Well, both kinda happened.

My oldest friend S and I were just going to get drunk uptown at the Calamus Days street dance. What else was there to do? We pre-gamed with some strawberry schnapps and lemonade and some Bud Light, which I usually hate, but in cans, was not so bad. Head up town, on the way there, we're talking about where some of the people from HS were and who they were dating and so on... I had a huge crush on a guy back in HS and it was pretty certain that at some point he would be uptown too that night. So I made the joke that "Can I just get drunk and makeout with a [insert last name here] twin?!"

The night wore on, we continued to drink and drink and get rained on and drink and dance and the band was pretty good and we ran into people we had hung out at on the 4th of July and eventually we made our way into the only bar with the rest of the drunks. Ran into another classmate of ours and did some shots, at one point I had both [insert last name here] twins around me and obviously flirting. When we finally got thrown out of the bar, the twin I liked way back (we'll call him... Brian) was standing next to me and rubbing my back and all that, saying that he might be in Ames the next day for a "HVAC seminar". Asked if I wanted to "take a walk," and I said yes, but trying to say, I hope you don't think this is going where I think you think it's going. Down the block he took my hand, and kissed me. Actually fantastic, I have to admit. Made our way to the back of the Fire Station and the LP tank. Lots of standing in water, as the rain had puddled there. Long story short, shirt was off, etc, he definitely tried to get me to sleep with him. I don't want to degrade him at all, but there was begging and sweet talking and I could tell that he still actually wanted me. But I couldn't. This actually goes back to fuckface.

Because I was so incredibly drunk that night, I've made it a rule for myself that the first time with a guy will not be when either of us are drunk, and "Brian" and I were smashed. I tried to tell him that, and if things had been different, it might have happened. But not then. I hated myself for fuckface, and I didn't want to hate myself for "Brian".

But I'm leaving the best part for last, and yes, I knew this the whole time, and factored in to my decision slightly. He has a, ah, very long-term, live-in relationship. She has at least 2 kids, not by "Brian", but she now has one on the way that she says is his. He says he doesn't quite trust her, but yeah. So I made out with him. I didn't let him cheat. And it's complicated... oh so complicated...

But moving on, even with the title of the post... Last summer's psuedo-ex. Has a new lady friend. Who is 18... and a half. Like, she introduces herself as that. I'm sorry, but if you feel the need to introduce yourself in half years, you're just not quite ready to level up yet. But this has had the happy coincidence of ruining any chance he had or wanted with me.

Which probably happened awhile ago anyway. But the reason I know now is because I certainly have my sights set on another. And this time, finally again, for the first time since "Brian", a guy I like is actually older than me. And this time, by quite a bit. I don't want to get into it quite yet, one, because I don't know where I'll be in a month, and two, because I don't want for it to seem like it's retaliatory for the 18 1/2 year old. But it's fun, we've become grand friends. And what's it mean when you catch him just looking up at you for extended periods of time? huh, another question for another night, I suppose. Because this post is already far too long.

g'night!

Tired of my hair color

2009-07-01T00:24:00.005-04:00

Guys, if you read this, you will be bored shitless. Except for the end. Near the picture. Skip to there. Don't say I didn't warn you...

Yup, you guessed it. I dyed it again. Now normally, this is just something I do every once in a while, ya know, to change up the everyday. But in this last one, I think I may have realized something.

Each time I go to dye it, it's at the start of something new. Whether it's a new semester, a new school year, or I'm just wanting to make a good impression, I dye it for occasions. Starting my junior year of college. I mean, I did it in high school when I was trying to change my image a little, but I stopped. I've always gone red. Well, the first time wasn't my choice, but I still ended up loving it. It was for a conference where we had costumes. Our school's theme was X-Men, and I was Jean Grey. Red hair. Bright red hair. So that was really the start of my time in Res Hall government. The *start*. Then beginnings of semesters, like with Dirk Deam and I felt different hair would make me more confident. Not so much, but yeah. Beginnings. I held off on it in the fall semester because I hated where I was. I think I finally dyed it when I accepted that I was stuck there for the year. Then, for Spring Break. that was a stupid reason to dye it, but none-the-less. Things were going to change one way or the other and I knew it. Now, they changed for *the other,* but still.

So this last time. I must really be wanting to make changes. Well, I've already changed one thing about my life, and I think I'm finally accepting things. That and one of my friend got me on this kick and now I going to try to reach that goal, and going for dark hair is one step closer. And dark. Not red/brown/auburn. Brown. Love it. But, off the tanget, I dye it when things are new, or when I think things are going to change. And right now, I kind of like this change. Or maybe I'm just being a girl and I will have a completely different mindset next week. I hope not. Unless action is taken, I don't think it will be different. Besides, I know what (who?) I want, so I shouldn't worry about others. Although this may be a try to differentiate myself from others. I've known that part for awhile. But on the other side, I was just tired of being a dirty blonde. There are too many of those around. The only thing is that I really need to tan for it to look good.

So yeah. Told you boys (if you actually got to this point) it would be boring. Girls and their hair, very personal.

In other news, (not very interesting news) I'm jacking up my work out. In 2 days I upped my total time by 2/3. Now instead of 3 sets of 8 minutes on eliptical with a set of 20/10/20/20/10 in between, now it's 5 sets of 8 with the same after. Woohoo. I can feel it. After the second day of ramping, I HURT, but I'm better. Musculosos I never knew existed are coming through, which is awesome...

Uhm... yeah. Saw Transformers at the midnight showing! Awesome!!! I want to see it in IMAX now, but no-one wants to go with me... sad day.

The pits are now warm enough for daily swimming!!!

Went shooting with one of my friends the other day. AR-15. Did pretty well. The first two times I got all my shots on the target!!! Couldn't tell after that because of sharing, but it's going up on my wall...

Soo tired now. Going to bed.

Another day, another pint night

2009-06-19T00:05:00.006-04:00

I feel as though I should update this, but I'm unsure as to what to go off on. No real rants. I'm pretty content with how things are going right now, I suppose.

Hmmm... We went and got fireworks. Road-trippin' it. It was a lot of fun, actually. Just me and a few guys. That day ended up being next to perfect. After getting home, we went swimming out at the Pits, shot off a few fireworks, had hotdogs and s'mores over a fire, so so perfect. I wish I could keep days like that in my pocket and hit "replay" when I have a sucky day. Like last night.

(K, if we have not hung out when you go to read this, stop, because I really want to have storytime with you)

Before I begin, I should say that I have been sick the past couple of days. So I've been loading up and doubling up on cold medicine. Which I knew would probably affect my ability to keep up my normal level of drinking, even after not drinking for a few days. Little did I know. Little did I know.

Went to Olde Main with A, T, T's friend, M and J. After one drink, I was pleasantly tipsy. After two drinks, I was a bit drunk and should have stopped there. After 3 drinks I was drunk, after 4 drinks, I was blitzed beyond belief. I remember nearly everything, bits of it are coming back a little bit hazily, but for the most part it's there. But I was horrid! I was doing things I never would have imagined I would do, even drunk. I know I get in a "let's tease people and freak them out and pretend to stop breathing and hide" mood when I'm drunk but what the fuck I was an annoying sonofabitch!! And I was talking and sharing and Hell, he nearly got the *fuckface* story. Very few people know that story, it's not a pretty one. It needs to be told at some point, (along with the fun stories of my ex's and psuedo-ex's(Oh, that's the fun one!)) but a controlled, non-drunk environment for goodness sake! And now I may have screwed things up there, because God knows things went to hell and back once. Meh, at least I didn't take my top off. But I did have an interesting run-in with an officer as I was crossing the street to my apartment...

But after nursing my slight hangover, I finally got back on the horse (and by horse, I refer to the elliptical and weights) and did my full workout again, after doing a half-assed one Monday because I could feel the cold coming on, and skipping Tuesday and Wednesday because I was sick. So that felt good. And swimming tonight, and I finally have food again because I got back to Fareway...

And, and. Guitar. I hate to brag, but I'm getting good. Now I have a lot of time to practice, I don't have work a lot, but still. Taylor Swift and Plain White T's are my staples for now, but I have a lot of the chords down. Now I just need to convince my friends who *really* play guitar to take me under their wing and teach me a few tricks.

OH. And yeah. Twitter. Yes, I'm on Twitter. I got it to stay in touch with a friend when I moved to Boston and my following is still not very large. But massive confusion ensued recently. I started talking to this friend who is still in Ames for the summer at least. Then this guy whose avatar looks a lot like said friend started following me. I thought it was said friend. So I start going back and forth with the @ replies to him and direct messages. Then, yesterday, thinking I was talking to said friend, started talking him into dollar pint night at Olde Main. Apparently, this was not said friend. I don't know who it is. But we're still going back and forth after I apologized and said I thought he was someone else. It seems he saw me at pint night but I was pre-occupied (what with the being blitzed off my ass and having my bra flicked) so he didn't come over, but he would still want to actually meet me. I am conflicted. Another time, another pint night, I suppose.

But I'm getting antsy. I know why, and it's not a good why. But it's the why every girl gets in the summer. But we'll see.

My guitar is on fire.... not really

2009-06-03T19:53:00.002-04:00

This post is going to be fairly short, and fairly trivial. More about going ons than rants or anything. I'm quite boring as of late.

I just got a guitar. And JUST got. This is late Wednesday afternoon. I got it at about 1:30 this afternoon. I've practiced and napped. That's all I've done. It's a solid mahogany-top acoustic Alvarez folk guitar, and it is gorgeous. It's not your typical guitar color, it's much richer, darker color, and it's pretty. It sounds gorgeous too. When I heard mahogany makes guitars mellower, I wasn't sure about that, but it sounds amazing, to me at least. I don't have any pictures of it yet, but I will soon. I even just about have a name for it. I thought it fits, and I think it still does, but I'll take suggestions.

So ah, this whole work out thing. I like it. It's not like I don't have proper motivation, it feels good, even though it does hurt. Some mornings my body hates me. Like *really* hates me. Well, it's more of throughout the day it hates me. Like Monday. After not working out really all weekend, except for golf on Sunday, I woke up late (10:30, when I was intending to already *be* in the workout room) and so I pushed it to get there asap. So the whole day I was tired and sore. It was like "You stupid whore! You get me up and push me for an hour right out of bed? When your *aunt* is visiting?! Then you expect me to *like* it? You stupid whore!!"

And in other, even more recent news, the oven in our apartment set on fire during a self-cleaning cycle. Luckily we were all in the apartment at the time, and got the fire extinguisher out and everything.

Also, a few other things have made me very happy in the last couple of days, and you can ask me about them if you want, and I'll tell you, but vague-girl returns!

Not all silences have to be awkward

2009-05-27T15:29:00.000-04:00

Oh this one will be fun. To write, at least, maybe not to read.

But apparently my tweets and posts have been so completely cryptic that my best friends can't figure them out. Which is great. I love dropping hints, but not saying anything outright until I figure out what is going on. But to K, I say, I promise, I will fill you in on Saturday. And to D, well, you were way off, and eventually, as I said when I figure it out, you will know what I meant. But not yet.

So to continue with my commentary on my drunken life...

In the past 8 nights, I have only not had a drink on two of them. Let's see, the last blog seemingly ended on the recap of Wednesday so... Thursday, I think, it was either Thursday or Friday that I just stayed at home with J, went to Welch Ave Station with D, B, K, and K. Ended up chatting with I, then KC stopped in before heading out of state for the summer. Was made to try a Zombie, lots of rum, not much else. Saturday, T, K2 and S came over, then W and C came, we played drinking games, they spent the night.

About C. I really don't know what to think. I've really waffled about whether I wanted to meet her or not. But I kinda had no choice. It was fine. We got along, which was a little different from the random dreams I've had where I've called her really-not-so-flattering terms, it was fun, W got "a little drunk," and we had fun. Best friends anytime soon? I think not. But able to co-exist within the same room without having the space-time continuum explode? Yes, that is possible.

T is teaching me guitar... well, letting me play his prized electric guitar at least. I wanna be able to bust out some Bo Burnham songs pretty soon. Nothing fancy. Just some chords. Baked cakes, went to S and C's to hang a bit, then to WAS. THREE TIMES that night. I got waved in twice. I think this is a new record. I've only been back for a week and I'm already getting waved in by the new ID takers, awesome!!!

Birthday party Monday. Chill, get burned by the sun a little. Tuesday, got stuck at Buchanan for a few hours because of the rain before I just said screw it and walked home. You know the intersection just outside of Element? Yeah, knee deep. I could have swum home and been less soaked.

I don't really know what to say. The days are kind of blending together. Which is nice, but really disconcerting at the same time. When I was at school, I'd know the specific date and day, and I knew what I would be doing. Now, I couldn't tell the date without a computer or calendar. Ok, it's the 27th. Good, Now I know.

Also, I want it to be sunny again. I want to go swimming and tanning and it's just been cold and rainy and not conducive to either. I tan really, really well, and I haven't had time or the incentive to tan in so long. I think I just want to prove I still can. I like being pale, but I'm ready for a change.

I've noticed a phenomenon lately, and I'm trying not to become a part of it. Really trying. How people fall back into things they said they wouldn't, or start things they said they would never do. This seems so weak to me. Come on, if you make a decision, you have to stick with it, not just go for the instant gratification. If you say no to someone, you should really take time, not just wait for them to give you puppy dog eyes. Wait for them to grow up, not just until they realize they want to get laid again.

Teehee, more crypticness. Nothing more of meaning to say.

Ames, sweet, home

2009-05-16T23:24:00.003-04:00

I've been working toward this post for a very long time, and I don't know exactly how to begin.

I'm back in Ames, and I could *not* be happier. So far I've seen nearly everyone I've wanted to, and I'm sure the others are soon to come.
But I'll start at the beginning.

The drive from Boston was long, but good. I needed something completely mindless to help get over the past month of law school studies. I drove all the way through New York and from Cleveland all the way home to Calamus.
Got some unpacking and repacking done at home. Haircut, etc. Then got out to Ames on Tuesday. Got everything moved in in about 2 hours and everything organized and put away by the next day. Win

Tuesday night was great. Went out with the 2 Ks for dinner and beer and crepes (or creeps, as we eventually referred to them as) and talked and had a great time. After that, met up with M and some friends and headed to Welch Ave Station.

Next day, went to the beach with M, J and S, so twice, yeah, but so fun. I might have gotten a bit burnt, but so worth it to relax on the beach like that. I can't wait til the water is warm enough to go swimming in.

Went to visit D in Buchanan. Planned the night at Olde Main. They said there would be random people there, but none of that could have prepared me for that.
Got there, was part of a beer down before a group of about 15 or more showed up with D. I was overwhelmed for a bit, but then settled in and had a rock-awesome night. Great beer, new friends... I won't say much here, because that might give something away. But I had a great talk with I, he had some good things to say, even though I already had my suspicions. And if you think this is about you, it likely is, but ah, until you tell my anything at all, I'm gonna go of what other people say, because it's all I'm getting at this point.

I also have some ass-kicking to do. It's going to be awesome.

So I met some great new people, and I think it's going to be a great summer so far. People have said they miss me, which is great. And ya know, things could get interesting too, which I'm looking forward to.

That's that, with regards to Ames so far. Very boring, but a bit of an update at least. The following is just a rant.

So I saw this bumper sticker. It said, "When 2006 is grown and gone, 2007 will party on and 2008 will think they're cool but 2009 will always rule." I beg to fucking differ. These kids... are just kids. I know I really shouldn't be talking, but I feel that as a proud 2004 HS grad, that these kids have no idea what they're in for. We've paved the way, we've rocked it out, and we're going to make hell for them. Break a few hearts, face a few hard times, see your friends fall and rise, go balls to the wall and not see your results, love and lose, have fun and rise above it all... then we'll talk.
Kids.
Yes, I know I'm friends with some of these kids, and I wouldn't trade some of them for the life of me, but some need to grow up. Open up. Man up. Etc. You get my vibe.

More later, I'm feeling lame now.

WOOOOHHOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!

2009-05-12T22:21:00.004-04:00

That was playing over and over and over on the Wednesday before the final!!!

Now the last final is over and I can forget about the tests for about 3 entire weeks.
I suppose I forgot to mention some of the things about the contracts exam. Now that I remember them, at least.
I did, in fact, use "My internal thesaurus is broken," on the test. I fixed it later, but the quote remained.

But now. I'm done. For 3 months.
I'm still in shock and I'll admit, still quite drunk from the afternoon at Sidebar with the rest of the gang. I'm a little bit more of a lightweight than I came into law school as. I had 1, 3 beers, plus one plus two modifications of the specials.... 6-ish drinks and I'm quite gone. I'll remember all of it, and it was great to talk drunkenly and, well, some interesting things with the other drunken guys at the bar, but I'm ready to get back home. Everybody is so encouraging and excited for everybody, whether they want to transfer or not.

(I had a very ranting paragraph right here, but since I've done some investigating, I'll leave it out til I have more proof of possible... whatever they may have done. Wanna see it? Tell me, I'll send it to you. It's very cryptic, you won't get much out of it, I'm telling you. It was just one of my signature rants.)

So yeah. A kind of short post. Once I find my camera cord, I'll post pictures on fb. And if you're not friends on fb, you really probably shouldn't be reading this, so fuck off.

1L YEAR IS DONE!!!!!

Unfortunately Lawrence v Texas made what the school is doing to us legal

2009-05-11T18:54:00.003-04:00

I wish I weren't so tweaked out on school and caffeine. I can have coffee every once in a while, but I get all twitchy. I kinda want some now though, now that you mention it... hm... starbucks....

So Contracts was today.
Yup.
I think I did ok on the essay. But on the multiple choice... I could have shit on my test and maybe gotten more right. I hadn't even heard of one of the words on there. Ridiculous. So yeah. I'm completely exhausted right now, but I need to do laundry and finish packing. I really can't wait to go, but I still have crim between me and freedom.

Don't look at me like that. Haven't you ever seen a chick do pilates in a library before? Yep, I've taken to doing stretches and random ab mini-workouts for study breaks. Gets the blood flowing well. I really don't care if I'm "that friend." You would lie on the floor and do stretches too if you were in the same position with nowhere to go for weeks on end, with no weekend breaks...

And it occurs to me that while I don't think I've changed, I've gone through a lot of ups and downs in the last 9 months. Well, I'm not sure ups and downs is the right term, but something like, becoming unsure of myself, designing my life around what other people were doing or thinking in relation to mine... I have notes on my finals study material from contracts last semester that reminds me of what a silly girl I was being back then. But the bitch is back, and I'm taking no shit. I don't care if I'm "that friend," the one who goes a half-hour out of her way just to get free beer, the one who will put the guys in their place, especially when they deserve it, the one who will lie on the library floor and do pilates, the one who will flip from classic rock to Bo Burnham in the same 15-minute time period, the one who will shoot a gun and show up all the guys, and the one who would rather talk shit with guys than drama it up with chicks (although it does seem to find me).

On a similar tone, there are so many inanimate things I would rather marry instead of a guy right now. Like, Pandora. My Caramel Latte. A piano. Monty. Don't judge.

I did a *ton* of packing on Friday night. I'm so proud of myself. Lots of vacuuming, lots of labeling, but I think I'm getting everything in the right place for this summer. Very stoked. But how everything is going to fit in the van is another question. I suppose once the shelf is taken down, it'll look a bit like less, but until then, my stomach does flops.

Oh, and apparently my body is anticipating the change that is about to come. Usually, after a big-ish change, I won't eat much for about a week. Like, moving back to school school sophomore year, moving to Buchanan, moving to Boston last fall AND coming back after Christmas break. Anytime I'm uncertain about anything. But I'm going into that mode *now*, as opposed to after I move. Very odd. I mean, I'm excited, I know I'll have friends there, but there are still things I'm worrying about. I mean, I'm at peace with the whole flaming disaster that was Spring Break, but I'm still anxious to see how the dynamic is. I don't know where I'm working yet, and I'm not sure which place I would prefer at the moment. I don't know how I"m doing on finals and whether I'll be able to stay in Iowa, as I'd like. I'll be losing my best friend and I *really* won't know when I'll see him again this time around.

I would like to revisit a procrastination "website" I probably talked about during finals last semester, but this time there's new material. The Angry Video Game Nerd. Still hilarious.

"If I were walking walking through the mall and I saw giant bouncing donuts and killer marshmallows, walking shoes and spring-jumping shoes, moon-walking shoes, paperbags with legs, paperbags with scary-fucking heads and killer towels, I think I'd shit my pants."

Random thoughts:

Apparently I can pull off pale. Who knew. I was always the one who could tan well without even trying. Now I find out that I *really* don't need to try. Wow. Go me.

Oh HEEELLLL no. They just gave an honorary degree to someone who can barely speak English!

You know, you can always tell it's been a long day when you go back to the house, whip off your pants and chug water.

The Final Week Starts

2009-05-07T16:17:00.002-04:00

So I've decided to post after each exam. A rather arbitrary assignment of a task, but still, a set time.

This morning was property. And I gotta say, if there ever was a pleasant mind-rape, that was it. I have no idea how I did, but I finished with plenty of time, I don't feel anxious like I do about con law or Civ Pro, and I can honestly just leave this one in the past. No lying awake until 2:30 wondering how many points will be taken off for missing that issue.... not fun. But even with all that, I still feel like cuddling with my Federal Rules book. It might *actually* be the first long term relationship I've had in a while. I'm kinda hard to tie down, have you noticed? And I know, maybe not in terms of geography, but yeah, in the other sense. Grrrrr.... I don't know where I'm going with this so I'm just going to continue with my story.

So as we were walking to lunch I was a complete dork and was like, "In exactly 168 hours we will be done with finals!" Yeah, Dr. Waggoner from Soc made me appreciate the length of a week. Well, maybe not appreciate, I procrastinated back then too, I was writing frantically late into the night before that 401 paper was due. But at least I know how long a week is!...

So yeah. In my studies, I came across this paragraph I found amusing while I was reading back when it was assigned. Background is that apparently a guy was doing a title search on a piece of property, and the guy who was buying wanted the search to go further. Yeah, the lawyer was a dork and kind of a douche, but I want to be them:

Gentlemen:
I am in receipt of your letter of the fifth of this month inquiring as to the state of the title prior to the year 1803
Please be advised that in the year 1803 the United States of America acquired the Territory of Louisiana from the Republic of France by purchase. The Republic of France previously acquired title from the Spanish Crown by conquest. Spain acquired title by virtue of the discoveries of one Christopher Columbus, a Genoese sailor who had been duly authorized to embark upon his voyage by Isabella, Queen of Spain. Before granting such authority, Isabella, a pious and cautious woman, obtained the sanction of His Holiness, the Pope. The Pope is the Vicar on earth of Jesus Christ, the only son and heir apparent of God. God made Louisiana.

My next final is on Monday. Contracts. The first final that isn't open note or some sort of open book.
I don't have a lot to say this time. So yeah. Uhm... Less than 2 weeks til Ames?

sigh Some boys are just pretty to look at...

2009-05-04T19:50:00.001-04:00

But finals leaves no time for that.
Eeebadeepaadeepbeeed. Ever feel like this? I just got out of my Civ Pro final. And I feel like I've been run over by a 747. Without the landing gear, and with spikes. I'm so physically exhausted and tired, and I did NOT have a monstrous headache when I went in, and *now*? Well, I've taken enough various painkillers to kill a smalll village, but hopefully it won't kill *me*.

But, guess what. I only have one more Sunday in Boston!!! Yet the end of finals seems like forEVER from now. But we're gonna go with optimistic.

More things I've learned in law school:

Come finals, many things are given up. A social life, for example. Sleep and hydration, however, somehow become vitally important.
Sometimes an exasperated sigh can say more than words ever could.
Just when you need to the most, you cannot for your own life read your own handwriting. (although, in my own defense, I know what reconnoitering means, I really don't use it in everyday conversation)
Finals, while for studying, has kind of made my entire life flash before my eyes. Who matters, who doesn't, and why things happen. How existential of me. (I swear I'm not emo, I just play one on TV sometimes.)
Everything from first semester (that's not used this semester) is GONE. I saw the words, respondeat superior and had *no idea* what they meant and thought I had a whole concept I had forgotten in Civ Pro and would have to learn again from the beginning before the test tomorrow. *headdesk*

Ugh! Right in the baby-maker. The school has the turnstyles you have to card in each time you go in the library, and every once in a while I move forward before it registers my card. It hurts. That is all.

And the title of this one? Actually true. There are just a couple guys in our class that are gorgeous, and while I rarely talk to them, and don't even study in the same room as them, it makes me happy when I see them.

And with the guys anyway, what is with it with guys picking up girls on the subway. I went on that one date with the guy I met last semester (we still hang out, whatevs) and tonight, I'm pretty sure this other guy would have asked me out or asked me to join if I had shown *any* interest in watching the Celtics game. Sorry dude, finals, and I really don't care. I literally asked, "What game?" We talked for a bit, so yeah. What's up with that?

And oh. dear. God. What is with the crazy porno spam I get in my gmail spambox? I don't even know where the random generators come up with this crap. I know I've gone on this rant before, but still, I highly doubt that increasing "sexuall" desire in women is for the "exercise of the deer." Unfortunately I've just emptied my spambox yesterday or you'd get some extraordinarily great tangent.

I have determined the perfect day will happen once I'm back in Ames. Ask if you want to know what it involves, or want in, but oh yes, there will be.... love.

One final note: I can't wait until "See you tomorrow" doesn't mean, "I'll see you tomorrow because I can only study at the library too. And I have to study if I want to stay in law school. Hence, I'll see you tomorrow."

Cousins need to stop f**king

2009-05-01T16:11:00.005-04:00

Well hello world. It's been awhile since we've last met. Not much to report though, but I'll try to make it entertaining.

We had our first test on Thursday. Constitutional law. I wish her good luck in grading them, I really do. Mine should be interesting, I'm pretty sure it'll look like I have multiple personality disorder or something, my handwriting goes from neat printing to cursive and back from sentence to sentence and sometimes even from word to word. And it gets messier as time goes on, obviously. *And* I used some interesting analogies, that's one of the few things I remember, contrary to statements to be made later in this post. I actually used an argument reminiscent of this story in arguing about regulations the government could use to protect genetic diversity. Yeah, I'm going nuts, it's ok, so far it's a fun trip.

Glad to get it out of the way, but it's very odd. I'm not sure that I could really tell you what was on the test, much less what I put down. I have this image in my head of what law exams actually feel like. All the material and reading and classes all spiraling in toward a concentrated point in time, and then the point in time poops you out, dazed and confused, and the spiral starts anew. And at the end there's a very large tub of alcohol. I'll try to illustrate that at some point.

I think I'll try to start a list of things I've learned in law school thus far. They may or may not be useful. We'll see:

How to spell attorney.
How to spell judgment.
Coffee is like beer, it's an acquired taste, and the more you drink it, the more you can tolerate it.
My internal clock is easily adjusted by a simple change in sleep schedule, but one late night and it's hell to pay.

One final note: I can't wait to get back to Ames. I want to be able to play piano. All this just listening to music is kind of killing me. I want to be able to pound out a Mannheim Steamroller or Trans-siberian Orchestra or some other music on the piano and actually feel the music. I miss that. A lot. I didn't know how much until lately.

I also want to learn guitar, but that will take the coercion of one of my summer boys. Tomjack, this means you, if you didn't know, or are actually reading this.

Finals Trials

2009-04-27T22:42:00.009-04:00

I think Erie needs to go off and die in a ditch where rabid badgers would thus devour it. I think it just gave me an aneurysm. Or is that the nagging bit of Con Law at the back of my head? Yep, that's right, thanks to Con Law I also think due process (of any kind) needs to go jump off a cliff. Except for the whole abortion thing. Choice is still good there. Just sayin'.

I really don't want to study for con law. I used to love it. I had my great debates with Tim and Nick and Neal, and I miss that. Now, we hate our professor, hate the class, and hate our lives because of it. During the review she said she "Didn't want to re-teach us" con law right then. Which means that she thinks at some point she taught us something. She is sadly mistaken. Grrrrr! At least that test is first up on Thursday, and I've got a reservation to the Sam Adams open house that night.

Is there any worse feeling in the world than during finals and a message comes up saying, "Word is unable to open this document due to an unknown error. You may try to recover it by praying to the bag of potato chips on the bottom shelf at the 7-11. No, not the one across the street, the one across town. The one you've never been to. Now, once you're done with that. Go to the middle of the Zaikim bridge. There will be a man in a pink Fedora and he will give you the password to a chest that is buried on Lovell island, which you must wait until May to go to, because the ferries conveniently don't run until May. No I don't care that your exam for this class is on May 7, that's not my problem. The chest will contain the code to unlock your lost outline, but it will not be in outline format anymore, just a list of meaningless words and code. Hey, Word said it would get it back, it made no promises on format. To get format you go to City Hall."
FML

I've also noticed that finals had started to reduce my ability and desire to think very complexly outside of studying. My conversations have started going downhill. I think I'm on about an 8-year-old level, with some teen-age girl "likes" thrown in there for good measure.
I saw the phrase "yudu screenprinter" and read it as "Yoda sphincter" until I realized that made sense in no universe.
Wore a Cyclone Alley shirt Saturday, wanted to show some Iowa pride. Walked to school, etc.
Went to Starbucks to get a drink, order, hand the barrista the cash, and she asks, "So are you *from* Iowa?"
I start freaking out in my head, because I'm thinking, "I just handed her cash, there's no way she should know, and even if I gave her my debit card there's no way to tell it's from Iowa..."
Then I remember.
The shirt.
Duh.
I've also apparently gotten even more ignorant to current events than usual. Who's president again? And what's with this swine flu? Is that an actual thing or just a twitter meme?

It also seems like my parents are having retro-active control issues. I was very unworthy of control during the times I actually lived at home, I didn't go out with the bad crowd, I dated the good guys, I got good grades, I followed the rules. So they didn't really have to exert any power, I was never grounded (though that part might have had something to do with the fact I was involved in EVERYTHING and they wouldn't keep me away from school activities). But now they're trying to make me feel bad for having my own life and not staying at home longer. Wake-up call, I have my own friends and my life is no longer there. I'll always call it home-home, but even they admit things get tense after awhile, so they need to stop being so passive-aggressive when I try to make plans to move to Ames. It's pissing me off. I want my Ames life back.

On a happier note, I may go ahead and get some sort of civil (haha, very punny... you'll see why in a minute) union to my civil procedure book.(ba-dum-bum. thank you thank you I'll be here all week)(oh dear lord kill me now! I'm making civ pro jokes. At least property jokes can be sexy! "I'll take *you* by adverse possession!" omg *headdesk*) We're allowed to "annotate" it, which our professor even took the liberty to tell us we can outline in it. So I've taken the last few days to do that. It's really amazing how neat your handwriting can get when your grade and/or life may depend up it. It's gorgeous, and I think I know my stuff, and I'm just going to hold it and love it and cuddle it next Sunday night.

Also, along with stress apparently comes very loverly and vivid dreams. Now if only the events would actually come true. :-) <3

But, it's getting toward bed-time. So far this week I've gotten about 18 hours in studying, and that's only going to grow. I've never studied harder in my life.

I wonder if, for the purpose of finals, a kiss could be considered a contract?

2009-04-24T22:50:00.001-04:00

So Facebook just recommended that I "become a fan" of "Left 4 Dead." This confuses me. Nowhere in my interests does it state that I in any way enjoy video games (although I do have that horny engineer quote...). But still, it makes me wonder, am I friends with too many gamer dorks? (nah... gotta love em all...:-) )

I know, I know, I've been not posting every two days, as is my late norm, but I have to tell you, not much has been happening. Finals period is starting up, as I guess was the title of the last post, as I recall, so yeah, still going on. I have to say though, and this is going to make me sound like a complete and utter ditz and blonde, but this studying thing may have something to it. I mean, I was pretty good at school, so I never really worried about studying, and I did just enough to get decent grades at ISU, but this really studying, making outlines, doing practice quesions, it just might help. Case in point: I was doing a practice question for Criminal law the other day, and that night, when I was trying to fall asleep, the rules of murder kept going through my head. In not a creepy way, let me assure you, but it made a light go on, like: "Hey, I remember what I studied...wait..." So yeah, I'm a ditz, but I'm going to do better in finals this time around, I'm sure of it. Except for con law, which the review session today made me want to sit in a corner and rock back and forth. We'll see about that one. At least it's first.

Let me give you an example of the craziness we have to study:

You tell me, does this sentence make any sense to you?

"Feoffment with livery of seisen."

No?
Didn't think so.
Oh, what? You thought I was going to explain it? Haha, nice try.

Also, this is frustrating. The further I get on my outlines, the further I get from the end. You know what I mean. When you have to go back and review something, except you keep adding to it, so the more work you put into it, the longer it gets, so the further from the end you get. So instead of you being on page 14 of 25, you're now on page 16 of 32. Your contributions have not helped the situation except to make it seem more futile.

I did go shopping on Thursday though. I had to get out of the school after Civ Pro review, my head was spinning. So I went to this super-fun store called, actually, Funusual. They've got tons of cute and unusual stuff. I got some cookie cutters of gingerbread men with pieces "bitten" off, something I've been stalking the store for for months. Also some stuff for K's birthday, some "I <3 my penis" and other random packs of gum (I figure they'll be fun to unsettle the guys this summer), and the thing I'm really excited about, but embarrassed too... penguin salt and pepper shakers. I'm odd, I don't really care, but still.

Which brings me to my next point. I have learned, and you've probably seen it asserted here, that I'm learning to not worry about what people care so much about me. If they don't like me, that's their problem, not mine. And so I've become completely comfortable being "that friend" in a group. Not the "let's leave her behind" friend, that still pisses me off, and believe me, if you make me disposable, I make you disposable. But the quirky, odd, makes people laugh and is always up for something silly and crazy. That's me. I like it.

So as I'm getting closer to the end, I realize it's only 21 days til I will be OUT of Massachusetts!!! I'm not gonna lie, I will miss the friends I've made here, and I hope they'll still be here for me if for some reason I end up not being able to transfer, but I'm super excited to go home as well. And while home is now Ames, I now have a picture of my home home as my wallpaper to remind me:

Oh, my parents did end up buying that condo out in Arizona.

I will leave you with a thought I found somewhere (I honestly don't remember where) and thought, "yes." I think I would feel this way too.

"Today when my toast was done it popped all the way out of the toaster and I caught it midair and a little part of my soul that I didn’t know was empty suddenly became filled."

So starts finals period

2009-04-19T22:29:00.008-04:00

So if you all haven't figured it out yet, I only use the phrase "I'm out" when I'm actually pissed or need to get over something. So yes, this weekend's "I'm out til VEISHEA's over" status... yes, I was sore over it. Fuck it. Hopefully I'll be back next year. And actually, I'm still not on FB, this is from an external blog. So ha.

Ok, so I do use "I'm out" in other situations, but unless I'm *actually* *leaving*, there's a good chance I'm using in angry irony. Take note.

So starts finals period.
I tried to get out of the school to study, so I went to the Boston Public Library. It looked like a nice building, and the website touted it as a wonderfully artistic place to study. But the security guards came after me and my coffee, and in one of the more sketchy places I've been lately, there was an empty hip-flask of bottom-shelf vodka sitting on one of the tables. So I got out of that area. Found the study room I saw on the website, and am getting some decent work done. I think. But I think I need to alter my sleep schedule.
That and my roommates need to shut the fuck up.

So in preparing my outline for Civ Pro, I have run across another of our esteemed professor's unintelligible scriblings on the slides. I'm not sure it's quite that important this time around, but still, I probably should be able to come up with something to translate it to and... nothing. Well, fvpen or foopah (come on people, urban dictionary it), which, I can **guarantee** you Sorenson would never write. Or even think. Yeah. Thoughts?:

I've started to notice that we've started referring to the end of finals like I imagine the Pilgrims would have referred to the end of their voyage. Like, "I'll see the light of day and be normal when finals are over," and "Some of us may fall along the way, but if we make it to the end there will be a bright light, filled with booze and loud music." Or maybe that last one is just me.

Maybe this is an example: OMG I miss driving!!! In less than a month I get to drive for about 16 hours!!! Then 3 more, and all around Ames!!! I miss Monty, even if his backseat does smell of booze.

This will completely be my status on the day of the last final here:

"So until our tears are dried, we'll drink and drink and drink and drink and then we'll drink some more. We'll dance and sing and fight until the early morning light, then we'll throw up, pass out, wake up, and then go drinking once again!"

Anyone recognize it? It's yet another gem from my Tenacious D radio on Pandora.

Some people are really going nuts with the studying already. Yes, I've actually started buckling down, but there are people who say they don't sleep at night and study from like 7 in the morning until 11 at night, and I just can't see it. I mean, I'm sure they don't and can't study straight through, but I can't even pretend to study that long or that hard. I need to have some semblance of a normal life. Besides, it's impossible for someone to be productive for every single waking minute. You just can't do it. You'll go nuts. I hope to emerge both victorious and sane at the end of finals. Wish me luck

*Cue non-sequitur segue*

Be very glad I have a very strong force pulling me back from doing many of the impulses I would love to do. It's very good that I don't put my evil to actual use. If I were ever employed to put my evil schemes to work, the world would come burning down within weeks. Those people who have pissed me off should be particularly glad I have this certain over-ride mechanism.

One last note: It appears as though my parents have made an offer on a condo in Phoenix. This should be exciting, but I'm waiting until I get an answer on my school for next year before I start proclaiming: "Spring break 2010, anyone?"

Real life is sometimes better (and far more bizzare) than fiction

2009-04-17T17:50:00.002-04:00

If only the stories I told here were only just stories. Instead, real life is sometimes much more interesting. I'll tell you the exciting-sounding part, then explain it. More and more of it has to do with Twitter, but still, entertaining.

1) I got threatened personally by a tv character:

I watched Krod Mandoon, a new show on Comedy Central. The guy is pretty good looking, but even I, as a straight chick, have to admit that the main chick on that show is smoking. So I tweeted: "Krod Mandoon... even I will admit that chick is utterly hot." I got an @ reply from KrodMandoon: "@ctinalk Aneka is mine!" fml.

2) The return of cockpocket.

Yep, the chick I haven't even met, but will have to eventually; dreamt about her. In the dream, she was mad at me for being passed out on the couch of her boyfriend. I really blew her off. Just like "fuck off, I am hungover. And don't you think that if I had hooked up with him, I'd be in the bed instead of on the couch? You are being irrational." And I haven't even met her. It'll be quite the scene when I actually do, I admit

.

3) Bunnyrabbitsex told me I should write.

I twittered about the dream, just "Had another dream about miss cockpocket. At least my dreams and twitter supply me with an endless supply of entertainment..." "@ctinalk you should write your dreams down and turn them into stories."

4) A cascade of alcohol!!!!

I was deciding whether to get a bottle of wine for myself at Liquor World this afternoon, and a tremendous crash and sounds of glass breaking comes from the back. Bottles of wine and beer were falling down from one of the topmost shelves. It was sad and awkward and entertaining to watch. And hear. Except a mom with a stroller was near ground zero and went off on the guy and stormed out. I felt sad for him. Typical. For me to side 1) with the liquor guy and 2) against mothers.

5) My bed gives new meaning to "the motion of the ocean."

So I think I've mentioned that I have an inflatable for a bed, and since spring break I've been using 2, one on top and one for height. Well... the height one seems to have sprung a larger leak as of late, and towards daylight it's leaving me very precariously perched on the top. I'm going on a hole-hunt tonight. After I finish my con law question

This post is also about shit. For now anyway. I have a few frustrations dealing with bathrooms as of late, and I feel the compelling need to share them.*

So you know the toilets with the sensors that flush the tank when you get up at the end? Every singe one of the toilets at the school has them. And most of them work just fine. except. Except for the possessed ones. The second stall on the 5th floor, and the 1st stall in the library. Evil. They will flush *as you sit down*. As you get *closer* to them they flush. Then periodically as ya pee. Like you sit still and it thinks, "I'm going to piss this stressed off law student just a little bit more. You think you're sitting still...? I see every millimeter of movement, and will flush just to show you I'm paying attention." It's like a bad duvet. Or whatever those things are called. *edit: bidet, that's what they're called.

I also think it's kind of funny how disproportionate some of my notes are to the things we actually talked about in class. Like, there's this one case that we probably talked about for 15 minutes, which is a decent amount of time for Con law, that was about how Iowa used to limit the length of trucks that could travel across the state. So naturally I should be all over it, right? My notes say, an I quote:

"ii.Kassel v. Consolidated 1.Limit lengths of trucks in Iowa."

I'm gonna do *awesome* in Con Law.

*By "share them," I mean, "do anything and everything to get out of studying." This is a last-ditch procrastination attempt.

It's been awhile since I've been called sane, I'll admit

2009-04-15T22:09:00.002-04:00

There are many things I should do in the next month, but on the "what I *want* to do" scale, setting myself on fire is somewhere below going on a month-long drinking binge and yet above studying for finals. This might not end well.

Welcome to yet another meandering post. Try to keep up.

I think Facebook has officially taken it too far when I can take a quiz entitled "What kind of librarian are you?" Apparently I'm "Librarian 2.0." Apparently I'm *also* Hitler, according to the "Which world leader are you?" quiz.

Woohoo!!! I really am losing it. I never thought I'd get to the day where I'd say, "Yay, rape!" But you have to remember, this is now a law school brain. In my mind, that thought is succeeded by, "That means I'm getting towards the end of my criminal law outline!" So in this case, rape is a good thing. As twisted as that sounds.

I'm a freaky brat with amazing eyes who ran shirtless with a condom because I have amazing boobs. Hmmm... yeah, this was a little chainletter type thing... ask if you really want to see it. It's pretty entertaining.

Why do I beat myself up over things that the other person probably doesn't even care about!? I can't go back and change it, and it only matters in my mind, so why? It's only distracting me from the studying I should be doing.

OOOHHHH guess what? Guess who's back? It's the amazing fighting couple. Veronica's boyfriend is back, I didn't even know he was over, and already I can hear their voices escalating over my new South Park. And they're fighting. I can't wait for summer.

Best bumper sticker I've seen lately: "Twilight made me cry because I could feel a part of my brain dying."

It's great. I think. Or at least a bit funny. My first cold call of the entire year has come back to give me a horrible nickname. "Douche." As in Hannan v. Dusch. fml. I suppose it's appropriate, my language has been changing to fit it. Lately my usual reaction has been either "sweet," or "mother-fucker!"

Yeah, a lot of this has to do with the final countdown of law school, I'll admit, but really there's only a month left until I will no longer be in Massachusetts!!! No, seriously, on May 15th, at about this time, I assume I'll be somewhere in the western New York/Pennsylvania/Ohio area. I have a lot of studying/outlining/writing/drinking to do before then, but at the end of it all, I get to move in with a couple of great friends, and will be only a few blocks from my summer boys again. Not that I think it will be the same, but to have some continuity after this year will be fantabulous.

I can't wait.

Give me summer, I demand it. NOW!!!!

2009-04-11T15:57:00.001-04:00

Huh.

Huh.

I don't know exactly how to start this one. It's kind of like having a crisis of self, but not caring enough to really dig deep and figure it out because it's not that bad, but also knowing that something hit a chord that didn't feel right. I don't know how to explain it, but I'll try to put thoughts down.

Oh, and there'll be a rant at the end. yeah.

So Friday we went to the Tam again for drinks. The weird guy that was there before spring break was there again, just as weird. I had a couple vodka:vodka:cranberries (I had vodka in there twice because the bartender makes them really strong. But after the first one you don't taste the vodka anymore. Lucky me.) and was fine, thanks for asking. Went to Con Law, I think. Yeah. Pretty sure.
But after class I was typing up my notes from the last 3 weeks, and L came in to check in for a break. But as she was leaving she said, "We are shadows of our former selves. We should be drunk right now." And of course I laughed and agreed.
But I got to thinking. Yes, I do like to have the alcohol, and every once in a while I do go overboard, but in general, I feel like I'm reverting to my old self, my introverted, freshman self. Maybe it's good, because that means I don't have the crappy feeling the morning after so it doesn't interrupt my studying, if studying is what I'm doing. But at the same time, I feel like I've come so much further than that. I like who I was last summer, and I want to maintain that. Maybe I just need to get back to Ames.

And that's only like 40 days away! Woohoo!!! Which means finals and such are much closer than I would like to think.
But I'm gearing up. I took a lot of this week off, but I did get some criminal law outlining done. But I took Thursday afternoon off, went shopping and down to Long Wharf. Sigh. The last time I was there, things were much different, both with people and the way I was feeling about Boston. Things change, it just takes time to realize how much they do change.
Then I went to Demetri Martin that night. He is ***gorgeous***. I would have his babies in a second. His hair (yes, I'm a hair girl) is perfect for me, and he's hilarious and can play the piano and guitar... me perfect man. He went to law school too... like me! I'm off to Bo Burnham tonight, looking forward to it, but I'm putting off leaving because it's raining hobos and tramps again.

***

So for the rant. This one pisses me off so much I've even decided to include a diagram. This is a section of the subway to and from school, between a set of doors. It goes: 2 seats, pole, 3 seats, pole, 3 seats, pole, 2 seats. So it would seem like second nature to pick the seats next to the pole to allow a second person to easily sit in the same section, thus allowing more people to ride seated during non-peak hours without majorly intruding into their personal space. Not the case. Some douchebags choose to ride like the guy on the left, as such:

The proper way to situate yourself is like the two loverly people on the right.

I find myself doing a poll in my head, and upwards of 95% of people who do this are either younger/middle-aged guys or foreign. And the guys ALWAYS, ALWAYS splay their legs so wide so it would be impossible to sit next to them without asking them to move their legs. Yes, I know you think you're the man, but what you're doing makes you look like an asshole, and I bet that's why you never get passed second base, I can only assume you have to spread them that wide because you have some horrible STD that requires you to allow your tiny dick and balls access to air at all times, I hope it's syphilis, and I'm sure your mother never loved you as a child. Or now. There is a special circle of hell reserved for people like you.

Just because I kiss the prettiest boys and I drive Monty too fast...

2009-04-09T15:46:00.005-04:00

Why does everybody want to kick my ass?
Yes, yes I did in fact just ad lib to Big and Rich.

I cannot wait for the day when I can legitimately RT this post: It's Monday. A day where I probably won't leave my house.

I'm slightly confused. This entire week was supposed to be rain, rain, rain. But it's been pretty gorgeous most days. Except for Monday. It was raining hobos and tramps (it rains hobos and tramps in Massachusetts instead of cats and dogs, for those of you wondering). But I guess I get to go shopping today, I've got loads of time to kill before I have to walk the 300 feet down to the Wilbur Theatre to see my future husband (future ex-husband?) Demetri Martin perform.

I seem to be having the *best* luck lately. No, seriously, other than the stress of classes which is kinda making me shut down, everything seems to be going right.

Shall I start?

Well, I sent an email out... Tuesday, I think it was, to the Ames City, Story County and Boone County attorneys, trying to put feelers out to figure out if internships at any of those places would be feasible. Guess what? Later that day, get an email from the Ames guy, saying I'd probably be able to work there part time during the summer!! Now I still want the job with Iowa Concern, but they don't decide that until May, so I kind of need to figure out a way to stall. I'm good at procrastinating though, it shouldn't be a problem.

Then, my random trolling of the internet paid off Tuesday night, when I stayed logged on to Bo Burnhams live blog site. Apparently, while I was off folding laundry or doing some prelim packing, he showed up for about 15 seconds and gave all of us on there permanent operator status. For those of you who don't get it, blogtv only allows 150 people in the main room to chat directly with the blogger at a time. Now, thanks to perma-ops, I get automatic main room! It's really a cool celebrity run-in for me.

Then, Wednesday morning, I roll out of bed, get online, register for classes at New England (because I'm not guaranteed that I'll be able to transfer back), then climb back into bed. It was wonderful, easy, a little bit more awkward and slower than ISU (but what do you expect? I'd hope a leading technology school would have a perfected online registration system, so I've been completely and utterly spoiled both by the system and the fact that I always got to register early because I was head and shoulders above everyone else in my "class" in terms of credit numbers, so I was registering with the seniors in the spring of my sophomore year or something crazy like that), but I got all the classes I wanted. I figured most others did as well. hahahahahahha nope. Apparently lots of people got NONE of the classes they wanted, some didn't even get into the REQUIRED class.
Ok, let me emphasize. This is a class we are REQUIRED to take next fall, and the school didn't have enough seats open. Utterly ridiculous.
Oh, and my process took all of about 8 minutes. 8:08, back in bed. Some people's took upwards of an HOUR. I'd be super pissed.

But, I'm counting my lucky ducks only after they hatch. But this week has been pretty great. Easy, tiring, but easy. I've been taking it easy on purpose too, because the bum rush of finals shall be upon me soon enough. So I've got Demetri Martin Thursday and Bo Burnham on Saturday, which I actually have a date for. legit. But I'm leaving. He knows. Whatevs. Not making that mistake again.

I wanna go hooommmmeeeee. Home to Ames. 40 days til Ames. Or some ridiculously small number like that.

Varnum v. Brien: my summary

2009-04-05T18:03:00.002-04:00

So, in an effort to make sure I know the case, I’m going to spend my Friday night (which turned into Saturday and Sunday afternoons) perusing Varnum v. Brien and setting out what I would state the summary to be.

(A note before you begin, this ended up being 9 and a half pages in word. That's a lot longer than I thought it was going to be, but I still think it’s good. This is not meant to be a legal analysis, by any means, and is simply meant to put the ruling into a more concise and focused format. But I by no means think it was a poorly written opinion. On the contrary, I think it is pure poetry, (indeed, as you'll see, I started out not wanting to quote a lot, but many times the court said it better than I ever could, hence the reason they're the Supremes) whether you agree with the ruling or not. I also hope I’ve presented it in as balanced a voice as possible, even with my comments inserted.)

If you're not a law student and want a toned-down version, just ask.

So enjoy, comment, and if you want to repost, just ask permission.

Some background to begin with: I was too young and naïve to remember or care when this whole thing started back in 1998, but the legislature passed the Defense of Marriage act, which added to state code that “only a marriage between a male and a female is valid.” In time, six same-sex couples who were denied marriage licenses by the Polk County Recorder’s office brought this suit against the Polk County Recorder. (Des Moines, state capital of Iowa, is located in Polk County) The couples brought the suit in the form of a summary judgment motion, using many arguments which the court addresses in its opinion, and the Polk County District Court concluded the statute was unconstitutional under the due process and equal protection clauses in the Iowa Constitution.

What resulted was an uproar, in the fall of my senior year at Iowa State, in late October 2007. For something less than 27 hours, gay marriage was allowed in Iowa. Because of the large amount of paperwork required to obtain a marriage license, only one couple was legally married in that limited amount of time, Sean Fritz and Timothy McQuillan, two students also at Iowa State at the time. (The article which followed this event in the student newspaper can be found here. An interesting quote from the article: “"The voters [need to decide] if they want Iowa to become the Massachusetts of the Midwest," McDowell said.”)

But the day after the ruling from the District Court handed down this ruling and ordered the recorder’s office to start processing same-sex marriage licenses, it stayed the order, pending the appeals process to the Iowa Supreme Court.
So comes this case. In the case, per our LRW classes, the court uses a basic outline form, which I shall follow.

II. Standard of Review
Pretty basic, the court will review the facts of the case under a summary judgment standard.

III. Constitutional Separation of Powers
The court goes into a declaration stating the Constitution is the upmost law of the state and when individuals seek an upholding of their rights, the separation of powers must be strictly observed. The constitution also creates certain rights, of which equal protection and due process are two, which the government cannot infringe upon.
At this point I have to point out that either the Supreme Court has been writing excellent opinions that I fail to read, or Justice Cady knew this opinion would have a nationwide and varied population reading Varnum, because he goes to great lengths to explain the history, notion, and process of the 3-tiered system of government. It also seems to know the outcome of this case may be unpopular to some, but must be decided this way, because it points out that “[a] statute inconsistent with the Iowa Constitution must be declared void, even though it may be supported by strong and deep-seated traditional beliefs and popular opinion,” (pg 13) and the point of the courts is to “to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts” (pg 14), and “[j]udges ought not to be partisans, and be influenced by partisan control. Their duty is to interpret and apply the law, to the end that the liberty, and the rights and property, of the people may be secured.” (pg 14)

IV. Equal Protection.

A. Background Principles
In both the separation of powers and this section the court recognized that the standards of the public changes as time progresses, so the fabric of society must be decided in the context of each generation, not sticking to outdated social norms. They use the progression of cases, such as race, where discrimination was once an accepted practice, but society has since seen that it is inherently contrary to the notion of equal protection.
In my favorite part of the opinion, the court goes into the history of cases in Iowa, and how progressive the state had been. A few examples include it struck down denying slaves equal protection and prohibiting women from being admitted to the bar, ironically, in both cases, prior to the US Supreme court upheld laws allowing these practices. It also “struck blows” at segregation as early as 1868, long before the US Supreme Court decided the Brown cases.

B. Legal Tests to Gauge Equal Protection
According to the court, in quoting precedent in Iowa, the equal protection clause in the Iowa Constitution is similar to that of the US Constitution in that it ‘is essentially a direction that all persons similarly situated should be treated alike.’ (pg 19) But in looking at the actions of the legislative branch of government, in keeping with the separation of powers, the judiciary “must give respect to the legislative process and presume its enactments are constitutional.” (pg 19-20) But the level of deference paid to the legislature is determined by the level of scrutiny used to determine equal protection cases.
Cady then goes into a very explicit explanation of the levels of scrutiny. When I said that I learned more about equal protection and levels of scrutiny from Varnum than from a semester of Con Law, this is where it started.
Under the rational basis test, the courts are highly deferential to the legislature, and it requires “only a plausible policy justification, mere rationality of the facts underlying the decision and, again, a merely rational relationship between the classification and the policy justification.” (pg 21)
However, “courts apply a heightened level of scrutiny under equal protection analysis when reasons exist to suspect “prejudice against discrete and insular minorities . . . which tends seriously to curtail the operation of those political processes ordinarily to be relied upon to protect minorities.” (pg 21-22, citing Carolene Prods.) “Under this approach, classifications based on race, alienage, or national origin and those affecting fundamental rights are evaluated according to a standard known as “strict scrutiny.” Classifications subject to strict scrutiny are presumptively invalid and must be narrowly tailored to serve a compelling governmental interest.” (pg 22, citations omitted)

[NESL classmates: I should note, however, in contrast to what Prof Garza was saying on Friday, Cady specifically says in note 8 on page 22 that “References to “heightened” scrutiny in this opinion are meant to be general; heightened scrutiny includes any judicial inquiry more searching than the rational basis test. References to “intermediate” scrutiny discuss a specific level of scrutiny between the rational basis test and strict scrutiny.” As I will point out later, the court specifically uses intermediate scrutiny to determine this case, they don’t try to create some vague new level located somewhere between intermediate and strict.]

The intermediate tier has been “applied to statutes classifying on the basis of gender or illegitimacy and requires the party seeking to uphold the statute to demonstrate the challenged classification is substantially related to the achievement of an important governmental objective. … To survive intermediate scrutiny, the law must not only further an important governmental interest and be substantially related to that interest, but the justification for the classification must be genuine and must not depend on broad generalizations.” (pg 22)

C. Determination of Constitutional Facts
I’ll admit, this section is one which I made no effort to understand the first time around, and I’m not sure it makes much difference in the grand scheme of things. But, it appears to me that because of the status of some of the testimony, the district court excluded it, and the County brings it up in this appeal.
Adjudicative facts, it seems, are the facts specific to a particular case and the outcome of the case hinges simply on applying existing rules to the facts presented. Legislative (or constitutional) facts, on the other hand, are facts about society as a whole and the idea leads to adapting laws or rulings on laws based on societal trends, and while there are set rules regulating the admission and presentation, of adjudicative facts, legislative facts can be presented either formally or informally, and can in fact be judge-obtained. The court looks at the “actual truth content” of the legislative facts, and should rely only on the most compelling data. However, the court says the error of the trial court in dis-allowing such evidence is not relevant in its current de-novo review.

D. Similarly Situated People
The County advanced the argument that the plaintiffs were not “similarly” situated to heterosexuals because they could not “procreate naturally” (pg 26) and therefore the laws did not have to be applied uniformly to them, banking on the assertion that equal protection demands that laws treat alike all people who are “‘similarly situated with respect to the legitimate purposes of the law.’” (pg 25) But, the court declares, “‘[S]imilarly situated’ cannot mean simply ‘similar in the possession of the classifying trait.’” In other words, “No two people or groups of people are the same in every way, and nearly every equal protection claim could be run aground onto the shoals of a threshold analysis if the two groups needed to be a mirror image of one another.” (pg 27) So “to truly ensure equality before the law, the equal protection guarantee requires that laws treat all those who are similarly situated with respect to the purposes of the law alike.” (27) The court explains the history of marriage laws in the state, saying that they were to allow individuals in a relationship to combine their financial resources and efforts and energies together. They also serve to “recognize the status of the parties’ committed relationship,” (28) and to change their legal and social status.
The plaintiffs are similarly situated to heterosexual couples, according to the court, because the purpose of the laws was to promote committed relationships and to provide “an institutional basis for defining their fundamental relational rights and responsibilities.” (28)

E. Classification Undertaken in Iowa Code Section 595.2
This section determines whether the statute limiting marriage to one between a man and a woman is classification on the basis of gender or sexual orientation. The district court held it was classification on gender, but the Supreme Court hold it classifies on basis of sexual orientation. “The benefit denied by the marriage statute—the status of civil marriage for same-sex couples—is so “closely correlated with being homosexual” as to make it apparent the law is targeted at gay and lesbian people as a class.”” By requiring that the person you are marrying be of the opposite gender, “purposefully placing civil marriage outside the realistic reach of gay and lesbian individuals”, the statute effectively discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation, not gender.(31)

F. Framework for Determining Appropriate Level of Judicial Scrutiny
Obviously, neither the Iowa or the Supreme Court has determined the level of scrutiny appropriate for a sexual orientation classification, however past cases can provide a way to determine the proper level.
“Classifications based on factors like race, alienage, national origin, sex, or illegitimacy are “so seldom relevant to achievement of any legitimate state interest that laws grounded in such considerations are deemed to reflect prejudice and antipathy…” “For these reasons and because such discrimination is unlikely to be soon rectified by legislative means,” laws based on these types of classifications must withstand more intense judicial scrutiny than other types of classifications. ” (33)
But to determine the levels in other cases, the Supreme Court has looked at four factors: “(1) the history of invidious discrimination against the class burdened by the legislation; (2) whether the characteristics that distinguish the class indicate a typical class member’s ability to contribute to society; (3) whether the distinguishing characteristic is “immutable” or beyond the class members’ control; and (4) the political power of the subject class.” (34-35) This is not a solid test, and the court assesses “how each bears on the question of whether the Iowa Constitution requires a more searching scrutiny be applied to the specific classification at issue.” (36) They do conclude that the first two factors have always been present when heightened scrutiny is applied and are considered pre-requisites. The final two are looked at to supplement the determination for heightened scrutiny

G. Determination of Appropriate Level of Scrutiny

1. History of discrimination against gay and lesbian people
The county does not argue that gays and lesbians have been targets of “purposeful and invidious discrimination” (37) because of their sexual orientation, and the court points to several instances of discrimination throughout and up to recent history, such as gays being dismissed from the military, hate crimes, and others. The state legislature has felt the need to remedy these and other past wrongs by including the definition of hate crimes to include those committed against an individual or group because of their sexual orientation and prohibit bullying or harassment in schools based on sexual orientation. These enactments “demonstrate a legislative recognition of the need to remedy historical sexual-orientation based discrimination.” (38)
“In sum, this history of discrimination suggests any legislative burdens placed on lesbian and gay people as a class “are more likely than others to reflect deep-seated prejudice rather than legislative rationality in pursuit of some legitimate objective.” This observation favors an elevated scrutiny to uncover any such prejudice.” (38-39, citations omitted)

2. Sexual orientation and the ability to contribute to society
First off, the court asserts that when the classification bears no relationship to a person’s ability to contribute to society, heightened scrutiny should be applied. A classification without that relationship is presumed to be based on prejudice and outmoded notions of society. (39) “More importantly, the Iowa legislature has recently declared as the public policy of this state that sexual orientation” has been “recognized in Iowa to be irrelevant to a person’s ability to contribute to society.” (pg 39-40, citing chpt 216 of the Iowa Code)

3. Immutability of sexual orientation
The County advanced this argument fiercely because they contest that the plaintiffs could not prove that sexuality was immutable. “A human trait that defines a group is “immutable” when the trait exists “solely by the accident of birth.”” (42) “Put another way, when a characteristic is immutable, different treatment based on this characteristic seems “all the more invidious and unfair.”” The Iowa Supreme Court said that the courts do not require the class to prove that the trait is absolutely impossible to change. Instead, they say the “immutability “prong of the suspectness inquiry surely is satisfied when . . . the identifying trait is ‘so central to a person’s identity that it would be abhorrent for government to penalize a person for refusing to change [it].’ ”” (44) The court here said that because the orientation “‘may be altered [if at all] only at the expense of significant damage to the individual’s sense of self,’” (44) sexual orientation can properly be deemed an immutable characteristic.

4. Political powerlessness of lesbian and gay people
The County tried to assert this prong of the test was not present because of the numerous legal protections the gay and lesbian people have secured for themselves against discrimination and argues that the group must have nearly a complete lack of political power before the courts elevate the level of scrutiny. However, the court says that complete lack of political power is not a pre-requisite for protection, citing the case that women had some political power when scrutiny was heightened for gender classifications, and the current political power is also not a pre-requisite for judicial protection, as then courts would unlikely be able heightened scrutiny on any current suspect classifications.
Rather, Cady cites, “the touchstone of the analysis should be “whether the group lacks sufficient political strength to bring a prompt end to the prejudice and discrimination through traditional political means.”” (46-47) And, “although equal rights for gays and lesbians have been increasingly recognized in the political arena, the right to civil marriage is a notable exception to this trend. Consequently, the specific right sought in this case has largely lacked any extensive political support and has actually experienced an affirmative backlash.” So it’s concluded that gays and lesbians as a class are no more politically powerful than other groups currently protected and this prong should not count against them in the current test.

5. Classifications based on sexual orientation demand closer scrutiny
In citing the Connecticut case of Kerrington, the court says, “Nonetheless, we conclude that, as a minority group that continues to suffer the enduring effects of centuries of legally sanctioned discrimination, laws singling them out for disparate treatment are subject to heightened judicial scrutiny to ensure that those laws are not the product of such historical prejudice and stereotyping.” (48-49) Therefore, classifications based on sexual orientation must be examined under a heightened level of scrutiny under the Iowa constitution

H. Application of Heightened Scrutiny
Although the Plaintiffs argue for the case to be subjected to the “most searching scrutiny,” the court holds that because the statute cannot survive intermediate scrutiny, the court does not need to and does not determine whether classification on sexual orientation should be subject to strict scrutiny. (49)

1. Intermediate scrutiny standard
As we should have learned from Con Law, (whether we actually have or not is questionable, I realize) ““To withstand intermediate scrutiny, a statutory classification must be substantially related to an important governmental objective.” In applying an intermediate standard to review gender-based classifications, the Supreme Court has stated: “Focusing on the differential treatment or denial of opportunity for which relief is sought, the reviewing court must determine whether the proffered justification is ‘exceedingly persuasive.’ ” …whether the proffered governmental objectives are important and whether the statutory classification is “‘substantially related to the achievement of those objectives.’ ”” (50, citations omitted)

2. Statutory classification: exclusion of gay and lesbian people from civil marriage.
“To identify the statutory classification, [the court must] focus on the “differential treatment or denial of opportunity for which relief is sought.” “Because the relevant focal point is the opportunity sought by the plaintiffs, the issue presented by this lawsuit is whether the state has “exceedingly persuasive” reasons for denying civil marriage to same-sex couples, not whether state sanctioned, heterosexual marriage is constitutional. Thus, the question we must answer is whether excluding gay and lesbian people from civil marriage is substantially related to any important governmental objective.” (51, citations omitted)

3. Governmental objectives
Here the court must determine whether the objectives offered by the County can be deemed important. If they are sufficiently weighty to be deemed important, the next question is whether the objective is fairly advanced by the classification. The five sections following are the County’s main arguments for the classification.

a. Maintaining traditional marriage
The court starts right off by saying this objective has “superficial” appeal. However, “[w]hen a certain tradition is used as both the governmental objective and the classification to further that objective,” the argument becomes circular in that it becomes a question of “whether the classification accomplishes the governmental objective, which objective is to maintain the classification.” (52) After a slightly confusing though explanatory example of this, the court says that in that approach it allows a classification to be maintained for its own sake. It also says that this is not a governmental interest being asserted, just a preservation of tradition argument.

b. Promotion of optimal environment to raise children
With both sides offering up support for their arguments that either “the interests of children are served equally by same-sex parents and opposite-sex parents” or that opposite-sex households are the optimal environment for children, and even though the court admits that the “best interests of the child” is a legitimate governmental interest which the statute may reasonably advance that interest, in this case intermediate scrutiny is used, and under that analysis the government’s goal must be substantial. The court then asks whether the classification is over- or under- inclusive.
“An under-inclusive statute means all people included in the statutory classification have the trait that is relevant to the aim of the statute, but other people with the trait are not included in the classification.…. An over-inclusive statute “imposes a burden upon a wider range of individuals than are included in the class of those” with the trait relevant to the aim of the law.”(55, only 15 more pages left!)
The statute is under-inclusive because it does not include others who would also provide a less-than-optimal parents, such as “child abusers, sexual predators, parents neglecting to provide child support, and violent felons” (56) and thus tends to show that the classification is based in prejudice or overbroad generalizations. “If the marriage statute was truly focused on optimal parenting, many classifications of people would be excluded, not merely gay and lesbian people.” (56) The statute in fact also does not prohibit unmarried same-sex couples from raising children. The court does entertain the notion that this statute is a step towards providing the optimal environment for children, with other remedies to follow, however it ultimately dismisses it as well.
The statute is also over-inclusive because it includes those same-sex couples who do not wish to and will not choose to raise children.
A statute which is at the same time both over- and under-broad statute reveals it is “less about using marriage to achieve an optimal environment for children and more about merely precluding gay and lesbian people from civil marriage,” (58) and therefore only minimally advances the government’s asserted interest, not clearing the hurdle of intermediate scrutiny.

c. Promotion of procreation
The court dismisses this claim quite quickly, mainly because the County failed to answer the question required under the analysis: “whether exclusion of gay and lesbian individuals from the institution of civil marriage will result in more procreation.” (59) While heterosexual marriage does indeed lead to procreation, the County failed to show that with same-sex marriage prohibited, opposite-sex couples would be more likely to have children. (As a chick who doesn’t want kids herself, I have to whole-heartedly agree with this analysis. It’s really quite ridiculous)

d. Promoting stability in opposite-sex relationships
Apparently the County didn’t even provide evidence to support this objective, and the court could find no relationship either. “The stability of opposite-sex relationships is an important governmental interest, but the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage is not substantially related to that objective.” (60)

e. Conservation of resources
The County’s argument is simple: “couples who are married enjoy numerous governmental benefits, so the state’s fiscal burden associated with civil marriage is reduced if less people are allowed to marry.” (60) However, under this argument, any group of people (African-Americans, illegitimates, aliens, even red-haired individuals) could be restricted from marrying in an equally rational way. (61)
The statute is also shown to be once again over- and under-inclusive with regards to this particular objective (see page 62) and the court holds it does not substantially further this objective.

4. Conclusion
“[T]he sexual-orientation-based classification under the marriage statute does not substantially further any of the objectives.” (63)

I. Religious Opposition to Same-Sex Marriage
The County does not advance this argument (the court rationalizes this silence saying it believes the County understands religion cannot be used to justify a ban on same-sex marriage), though the court brings it up as an argument on its own.
The court recognizes that much of the opposition to same-sex marriage comes from religious groups, seeking to preserve the sanctity and tradition of marriage. Because the Constitution does not permit any branch of government to resolve religious debates, lawyers, judges and courts have specifically avoided making these arguments. This aside, however, the court seeks to calm those opposed to same-sex marriage by asserting that this permitting of civil same-sex marriage does not require a church to change their doctrine. “A religious denomination can still define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, and a marriage ceremony performed by a minister, priest, rabbi, or other person ordained or designated as a leader of the person’s religious faith does not lose its meaning as a sacrament or other religious institution.”(66)

J. Constitutional Infirmity
There are no genuine facts which can support the upholding of the statute under the equal protection clause of the Iowa Constitution.

V. Remedy
“[T]he language in Iowa Code section 595.2 limiting civil marriage to a man and a woman must be stricken from the statute, and the remaining statutory language must be interpreted and applied in a manner allowing gay and lesbian people full access to the institution of civil marriage.” (68)

VI. Conclusion
“The district court properly granted summary judgment to plaintiffs. Iowa Code section 595.2 violates the equal protection provision of the Iowa Constitution. [The] decision becomes effective upon issuance of procedendo.” (69) (“[p]rocedendo shall issue twenty-one days after the opinion is filed unless a petition for rehearing is filed”)

Phew! On to my crim law outline!
~C

Without rapists who's gonna buy your whistles?

2009-04-02T21:19:00.006-04:00

How terrifying is it that I leave Boston in 43 days? 21+ of those days will be spent in the hell that is law school finals, at least 1/2 will be spent in a state of voluntary semi-conscious drunkenness... And yet it seems so far away til May 15th. I mean, I'm not going to say I'm excited, because I know somewhere I am. But also nervous. I don't have a job for the summer, even though I have a place to live. And while I know some people are excited for my return, my girls in particular, M, K, K2, and J, and a couple of my summer boys, J and W, are psyched and we already have plans (both legal and quasi-legal), I'm super nervous about how this summer is going to go. I'll be stressed about law school applications ( Damn I have to go through that 9th layer of hell again) and I won't be able to do all the free-spirited things I could last summer... and of course there will be the inevitable awkwardness... fuck. Just get me motivated to study for finals and I'll take it from there.
Maybe
Sorta
Kinda

Huh. Apparently people don't think it's a complete surprise that I could be dating someone. #AprilFoolsbackfire. I changed a couple things on my Facebook page, my political views to Communism and a member of the Neoconservatives, and said I was in a relationship, hoping to pull at least a couple into the web of lies. Nope. Not a soul. Meh, at least I can laugh at my being so single!

I am stalking an 18 year-old. It makes me sad. Actually I'm not stalking, because that would take effort. Refreshing Twitter and clicking links takes no effort at all. His name is Bo Burnham, and I just realized I told you about this in my last post, but yeah, I'll continue. It's smart, quick-witted, vulgar, crass, and brilliant. He also does these live shows, where he'll make up songs based on live viewer comments... I've never suggested anything, but this is just one line from one night: "Penis, Zach Efron... yeah, we're gonna stop it right there!"

And, slightly related, and more of a declarative statement!!:: I'm going to see Demetri Martin and Bo Burnham at the Wilbur Theatre!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (yes, that's a lot of exclamation points, but that's how excited I am!!!) They are both hilarious, and I adore them both. AAANNNDDD now I get to brag, especially to my fellow Demetri Martin fans. (nobody I know has heard of Bo Burnham, so they don't really care).

But yeah. Uhmmmm.... I think that's all for now.

WAIT! STOP THE BUS!!! NO!

I had oral arguments on Monday! I was fairly confidant going into it, I'm not going to lie, but if you didn't know your arguments after having worked on and researched the case for months, you're pretty much screwed. I knew I would get nervous right as I started talking. I knew this because for International Law moot court last spring with N, I was alright right up until I started talking, then I started shaking and sweating and my voice started quaking... it was partly nerves, part getting up and having to face J, one-night-stand fuckface for the first time in months. So that was in the back of my mind the whole time as I was nervously wasting time until The Hour Of Reckoning. And I did get a little shaky, but for the most part, I kept my composure, I ROCKED a couple of the questions the "judge" had for me, I'll admit, and the time went so fast. But no flop sweat (ew, yeah, but not this time, boo-yah), my voice was strong, and I kept the presentation flowing, moving back to my arguments from the questions and answers to and from the judge. And the "judge" and Meltzer were actually very complementary at the end!! So yeah, that part of hell is over, and it was actually a great, adrenaline-filled way to end it! They just might make a semi-competent lawyer yet.

There, that's it. For now. Honest.

Till next time:
~C

Oh Marky, amorous he, Marky Bobrowski

2009-03-30T13:32:00.003-04:00

'Nother random dream. And it involved me drinking the alcohol that I have bought in the last week.

It's probably from the stress. I've got oral arguments later today (3:30 est) and I'm not nervous yet, but the shakes have started. N should remember how bad I got during International Law moot court last spring. And now there's noone to follow up on what I say. But I figure something has to go right for me today, and I hope it's that. I couldn't find my other shoe (again! I swear my room eats shoes now), it's raining, the trains were running behind schedule, and I ripped part of the pages I printed off at school (had to print at school because my printer is out of black ink. I guess my bad luck started last night even. Fuck). So I suppose I'm dressed up enough, I know my arguments, my hair is at least out of my face. Yes, most of the girls are wearing their hair at least partway down, so I'm ok with my choice. But no more caffeine for me today. I had my latte and water, and I'm not going to put anything else into my system until after orals, just in case my stomach does not agree with me. sigh. wish me luck.

Ugh. My roommate and her boyfriend. Everytime I hear them or hear her on the phone with him it's like, "I'm not angry," or, "Don't be angry." Why would he need to say he's not angry.... and here comes the fight. "Baby... come on..." The sarcastic and the deflecting and arguing over stupid little things. Something about clothes. Every time he comes over they start fighting

"Oh Marky amorous he, Marky Bobrowski."
Perhaps I should explain. Our property professor last year was Mark Bobrowski. He literally wrote the land use textbook for Massachusetts. He knows he's the shit. And he makes it known. And there are a select few who worship him, and I am included. However, I'll admit he can come off as an arrogant asshole, because, well, he is one. So last Friday, the law school had "Follies," which is a roast of the professors, for students to perform and make fun of them. There were several good performers, but the one that took the cake is the guy that took on Bobrowski. Very glad only one of the professors was actually there. The guy that acted Bobrowski started out with a song. You remember the song in Aladdin, the Prince Ali march Genie sings to proclaim his arrival? Yeah, modified to announce Bobrowski. "Oh Marky, amorous he, Marky Bobrowski. He's got 89 silver Fararri's, Conchord-acre's he's got 35...." and so on. Then... "I am here to talk to you about the recession we currently are in. Do not worry about me, I have plenty of money. And I've even found a way around the 13th amendment. You remember what that one is? It's the one that banned slaves. I just hire them as interns. Work them to death and give them recommendations and they worship me for it." I LOVED IT. I need those lyrics.

I don't understand it. I wasn't even drunk at ALLL on Friday during Follies and I still end up with random bruises and scrapes and soreness. I had a Corona. That's it. Because all the bar had for beer was Bud or Bud Light (which if you recall I now refuse to drink. That'll be interesting at my class reunion this summer. My guess is there's going to be a LOT of Bud Light flowing, and now, from the smallest town on earth (according to Bill) I will now be the hippie that refuses to drink anything below Sam Adams. FUCK. And while we're on the topic, how fucked up is it that my 5th year reunion will be this summer? I mean, yeah, I've changed, for the better, but just looking at some of the people on the list make me want to strangle a puppy. I don't want to see them. Some of them, yes, I'll admit it'll be nice to see, because I haven't kept up with ANYONE from my particular HS class (classes behind me, yeah, but we were friends long before HS and have both been on the same track for a long time) and I can't wait to see their faces when they see me drinking with the best of them. But these are people that knew me, knew me well, and knew me since little on. I hope that they have all changed for the better, as I have. Like back then, I wanted everyone to like me. Now I realize that some people will never like me, or at least we won't be friends, for no fault of my own, our personalities just clash or my sense of humor is a little bit more than they can handle (ok, that one's my fault, but I love my sense of humor, no matter how vulgar, sarcastic or whatever it may be) and I'm ok with that. I'm pretty awesome, and the people who can't see that don't know what they're missing out on and can go fuck themselves. It'll also be mind-blowing for them because I didn't drink in high school. And now I'm all for drinking to excess, and could pass as a bartender. I can't wait to see their faces. But yeah, finishing up this complete tangent rant, it's going to be odd, because of the incestuous group that is the dating pool of people that stuck around home, and of all the people who got preggo quickly, and I'm in none of those groups. I'm the shit, I'm in law school, I know where I want to go in life, and I have great friends. Who could ask for more?) Oh but yeah, the bar only had Corona and I wasn't about to pay 9 bucks for a mixed drink. So I wasn't even tipsy and I don't know where this scratch came from. hmmmm

And my new favorite procrastination exercise? Listening to Bo Burnham. Seriously. Hilarious. Randomly popped on Comedy Central after Follies at Felt, and he was on the new stuff on Friday night. Seriously. So funny. I think I'm actually going to have to get his CD, even though he annoyingly and shamelessly over-self-promotes, but still, funny shit, I'm telling you.
"Did you know that Jesus died on the cross, just to keep you from masterbating? And until the 1960's, he frowned upon inter-racial dating?"

So this was a little more kept-together than usual. I consider that a success.

Now that, my friends, is what you call a wardrobe mis-function

2009-03-27T15:56:00.003-04:00

Yeah, you can ask what the title means. Yet another thing I shall be vague about.

hahahaha. Took a random quiz on rumandmonkey.com (if you remember, a procrastination website) entitled "Do you love him," cause I'm bored and it was late. The result? "No you don't, dump him." Already did thanks.

So this is another random thoughts blog, with quotes I've overheard, seen on TV or otherwise randomly been entertained by lately.

We're on the subject of sex-based discrimination in Con Law now, and the subject of feminism came up. I, as one quote I see often says, distinguish myself from a doormat, but I don't consider myself a feminist. I fight for my opinions and against the guys I know, but I'm not out there, trying to get every woman equal rights as men. The women that gain those rights have fought to be there, and the ones that feel they should just coast along can eat my dust.
There's also a little thing in the early sex cases that bugs me, as a chick (yes, I describe myself, and most other girls, as chicks, because I'm not a girl anymore, but I will never be mature enough to call myself a woman. Whatevs) who took ag with all the boys and whipped their asses at cutting welding and owns a coffeetable I built myself and can wrangle around a 1,500lb cow, I take a bit, ok, a LOT of offense to. (N, if you're reading this, this is for you, we fought for HOURS over this, and never ended up getting anywhere) There's one case where the court says women weren't allowed a privilege because we were to "fill the benign role of wife and mother." I would go crazy or become a raging alcoholic if I had to stay at home and only raise a kid. No fucking way. Then there's a case before JEB that said that the reason women couldn't be on juries was that

"Criminal court trials often involve testimony of the foulest kind, and the sometimes require consideration of indecent conduct, the use of filthy and loathsome words, references to intimate sex relationships, and other elements that would prove humiliating, embarrassing and degrading to a lady."

Maybe I'm no lady (and I'm OK with that) but foul language and indecent (mostly involving parties and alcohol) behavior define what I like to do. I guess that's how times have changed. You lose the lady and get me. But I'll still go on rants about how douchebags and punks and self-important and too-impressive-for-my-own pants male crowd on the Orange line haven't heard of the concept of "ladies first." Just see my twitter. Double standard I guess, but it happens, live with it.

It's slightly scary the things I come up with when I'm bored and hungry and inventive. The latest example? Chicken tender tacos. Microwaved, precooked chicken tenders, cut up, dusted with taco seasoning and topped with cheese in a tortilla. Not horrible, but it's one of those that once you see the final result, you immediately think, "Nothing good can come of this."

Why can't dreams be reality? I kept hitting my snooze Wednesday morning, trying to go back to the perfectness of the dream, including no presence of A. But plenty of the other, who shall remain uninitialed. Because you all know who. If you know me at all.

I can only say this right now: that I have the best friends in the world.

"Chess just got fucked in the face."

OHHH! The thing I've been forgetting to get down for the longest time now... pin bowling with Mormons. A friend from law school invited some people from school and her church to this event called "Redneck Round-up." I'm hick, sign me up. I got my flannel goin' on, with the cute tank top... and I've never been pin bowling. It's a little different than regular bowling, 3 balls per frame and the scoring of strikes and spares is a bit off too. But fun. I really sucked it up, but the Bailey's-flavored icecream beforehand helped. Yes, I get alcohol in any place I can. But it was a little odd too. Like I didn't feel like myself, ya know. Like I know they don't swear or drink, so anytime I would start to say "fuck" or go off on the alcohol I like, I'd find myself stopping myself, and I'm not to like self-censoring. Which is why I love my summer friends. And SATC. And anyone who knows they matter and I'm forgetting. You know who you are!

"Everybody's intimidating in their own way. It's better to be feared than loved."
"At this point after being so single I think I'd rather be loved!"

Pandora scares me sometimes. With the songs that come up on certain stations. There's this ... Hungarian boincy pingy song about gummi bears that came up on Tenacious D, and ACDC came up on Breakfast At Tiffany's. Who decides this? I would like to lodge a complaint. Don't get me wrong, the Hungarian Gummibears tribute gets me giggling every time I hear it, but I'm still confused by the fact that I AM hearing it.

Drunk Bejeweled Blitz is not necessarily the best idea in the world. Not that anyone would say that it was a good idea to begin with, but yeah. Not as fun as I thought it would be.

Only L2 could get us kicked out of Coldstone. Here is the story:
L, C, E, and I got lunch this Friday between classes and went to the small Coldstone near the school for dessert. We were sitting in the windows, just people watching, wasting time, because ya know, we really didn't want to go back and do the Con Law reading. Then L2 comes and asks us if it's possible to sue someone a store of an individual for smoking in a store. We start going over all the possibilities, and the guy working the counter puts in his 2 cents, because we were the only ones in the place. We had just gotten into the penalties for the store owner or manager, like the $500 fine, when a girl who works at Coldstone comes in, smoking. The guy told her to shut the door and put it out, then took her in the back and talked to her. At that point we were all like "Umm... this is awkward, we should leave." So we get out of there in like, 10 seconds flat.
So that is how we got ourselves self-banned from Coldstone.

I don't want to jinx myself

2009-03-20T16:39:00.003-04:00

Hooray for random ramblings:
(you know you tolerate me...)

~So. I've determined. To make up for the uberextremeflamingpileofcrapsuckitudefest that was my spring break 2009, I'm going to start planning my spring break 2010 right now. It'll either be to Texas, Florida, or...ooooohh. Arizona. My parents are thinking about buying a condo down in Phoenix, so it would be free to stay. So if you read this, actually know me, and would be down for a well planned, epic road-trip... let me know.

~I would rather sit backwards on a rolly-chair than be on nearly any other type of furniture.

~I've decided that someone looking at my laundry could be rather confused. It's a great combination of frills and flannel, long-sleeved shirts and tank tops, and lace and boxers.

~In Con Law on Tuesday, I nearly teared up. I had my notes from last year's con law class with Deam, and I realized that everything was better then. My life, my teacher, my passion. I LOVED con law, even though I never spoke up. I had FUN debating the cases with N and T (of course, stfu). I want that back.... I really do.

~Also, I've decided to make a scoresheet, if you will, for people to use. More for entertainment purposes, but it will determine the likelihood of whether your potential relation will result in a nuclear holocaust. I'm not sure how to set up a program to score it though, so it'll be all hand-calculated.

~My hair is weird. So I don't get sex hair after the fact, so I'm told, but wake up after a fitful night's sleep and just have time to run some mousse and spray through it? = sex hair. fml. or ftw. one of the two.

~This is going to sound very... circular, but I've realized that finally letting go of something is extremely liberating. Not focusing on something you have no control over? It may be something you wanted at some point, and it may hurt like hell, and I'm not gonna lie, you might emerge more jaded on the other side, but to not let it rule you life and your actions and your decisions? Brilliant. But even better if, after letting it go, you still want to make the decisions you made before you let go. ie: I still want to transfer back home. More than ever.

~Oh oh oh!! Guess what!? No matter what horror or blessing befalls me this time around in semester finals, I *will* be living in Ames this summer!!! I have a place lined up, and another offer to be roomies if that one for some reason doesn't happen. So if the worst happens, I have 3 months to get my shit together before I'll be out in the street.

~Aaannnddd! I just got some of the starters for my bar. They're more unusual, and one is just for shots, but it'll be great. I got Apfel Korn, an apple liquor that's great for shots. Then this, er, I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it was on sale, it's by Kahlua, and it's 70 proof. It's a fusion rum, with "spice, citrus and other flavors." I figure it'll be ok with Coke. It's not even a cool bottle but I want to try different things. Then, the capstone. I found a drink recipe that calls for Cabin Fever and it sounded really good, and I called Cyclone Liquors to see if they have it (they don't). So I swung by to get just that, and ended up getting the other two as well. I won't open any of them til summer, though, which shouldn't really be difficult. I've still got my 99 Blackberries to tide me over.

"I'm not sure my friends back home would believe this." ~yours truly. Our Civil Procedure professor plays music before each class, and Wednesday, in the "theme" for sanctions and penalties, he decided to play this. Whip it. Whip it good. Oh. Dear. Lord.

And I'm not sure if our criminal law professor has gotten onto my quote board yet, but his initiation is today. I think the problem is that his is more focused to the class, and so not funny out of context. But I'll try.
1) In talking about rape statutes and what level of permission or consent is needed, he went into a schpeel that went something like this: "Does this take us to the level where we have to require consent cards to be carried when you go out to the bars on the weekends? Like, if you agree, please sign here, if we get to level 2, initial here..."
2)This one requires the image of our crim professor. He's not a small man, and was a JAG (Judge Advocate General's office, if you don't know, part of the military) before he started teaching so. In teaching retreat: "What do you have to do to let the other person know that you're removing yourself from the situation? Run away? As you're running away to you have to say [in a PeeWee Herman-ish voice] 'I'm done fighting.'" (with motions of him running away) oh yes.

*Final rant*
OK. Seriously bitch. Some of use are trying to study. We don't have the leisure to hang out all day then come in and do a lazy class every once in a while. I don't care that you think cities are so great and everyone should live in one for awhile. I actually kind of agree. But what you *don't* do is insult where I come from. You're saying that everyone who comes from small towns or suburbia and say they think the city is so big and hate it are scum, basically, and need to go back to podunk. I do hate the city. I do think Boston is a big city, but *it actually is.* Look at the population. It says 6 million, not 10 square blocks. It sounds like you're the sheltered one. I can personally handle the city, I just hate it for reasons other than it's big. Perhaps, for people. like. you.

So that's it. For now. I told you it was long and rambly.

I am not allowed to drink Bud Light again

2009-03-14T22:14:00.002-04:00

I thought I would give it another shot after the time it was involved in the "shower-abortingly drunk" incident. However, after realizing it, not the late hour and lack-of-sleepishness was the reason for my crappy mood during KQ, and it giving me a headache at the end of last night's festivities, I've decided that I will heretofore reject all Bud Light offerings. Even if....even if.

Also, I'm sorry to barade you with posts lately. I'm sure this will be the last for a few days at least.

But moving on. Last night was the Barrister's Ball for New England. I was woken up at 4:30 in the morning by a friends gf texting me to tell him he's in the ER and ... I'm still very confused by that whole thing. But 4:30!! That's what really gets me. Which means it was 3:30 there, but still. WTF? And yeah, can't really chat her up. It'll be more than a little bit 1)awkward, to extreme, more because of the people in common and the craziness that has ensued, *and* 2) I've never met the chick. I really don't know what to do. But I got back to sleep after sending a pissy, middle of the night text back. (Don't worry, once I was conscious I sent a more caring one back.)

So I spent most of the day (because our Con Law professor canceled class because she was "sick." We all saw that one coming) straightening my hair, looking to my other shoe I wanted to wear and getting ready, then taking more than an hour to get to the Marriot, when it would have only taken about 40 minutes had the red line not stopped every fucking 5 feet along the fucking way.

But get there, get *the* best Tom Collins I've ever had, and make my way to the table, only to find the only other person already at the table was "superman," the guy everyone knows who he is, but noone really wants to talk to. And to top it all off, he didn't even know who I was. He was like, "I'm Ilir." I say, "I know, I'm Christina, we're in the same section..." "We are? I had no idea." I know, that's because you sit in the front row with the legally brunettes and make everyone want to shoot you when you start talking in class. Put your fucking hand down.

But then Justice Ginsburg spoke, was wonderful, about the congeniality of the court and the day to day workings. It sounded a bit like what N has said, but better. I just want to hug her. I want to be O'Connor, because she's just a supremely classy broad, like she could tell someone to fuck off and them actually want to do it, but Ginsburg is the wise old grandma. Brilliant.

Dessert, pictures, schmoozing and drinking afterwards. Try to get into several clubs, then find Whiskey's, where A buys us Bud Lights. I finish it quickly, and head out to catch the train back. But I develop a headache and stomachache before I even finished it. Blech.

I a friend to tell about Justice Ginsburg, but let him go quickly. Then, for the first time walking back to the house I felt unsafe, but I felt like I couldn't call the person I really would have wanted to call. Stupid plans going up in flames.
So I fell asleep sometime between 2 and 3. And woke up at 2:15 this afternoon. It was wonderful. Except it roused me from a perfectly wonderful dream about how spring break should have gone... well, in general. It, however, also involved a live hamster made of wax and an essential commune with some of the summer guys, and story hour with K and this other chick I haven't talked to in years being relocated into the commune because the wax hamster got melted and it started to rain.... It was a dream, give me a break. But I remember enough of it to be really confusing.

"Happiness isn't happiness without a violin-playing goat."
"What is it about men and nudity? Particularly breasts? How can you be so interested in them? But, but, seriously: they're just breasts. Every second person in the world has them."

Emo thought of the day: "Every once in a while I see a picture and think that I should try harder or try to be a better person to impress them, but then I remember that I shouldn't live my life trying to impress others. They should like me for who I am, not for who I want to be." I'm taking a stand. Or at least I'm going to try. I like the people I try to impress so I'll probably rebound, but still...you should value who I am and stop being such a fucking hypocrite. People need to stop being passive aggressive and grow up when it comes to dealing with people. I'm going to "be selfish," as one of my law classmates put it. I'm going to do what I need to do to make it. If you think you matter right now, believe me, you still do, but I'm just going to keep playing it cool for now, and follow your moves instead of making my own. I'm pretty awesome, and if someone can't see that, then they obviously don't know what they're missing. I have some amazing friends who I love and adore and wouldn't change, but it's every once in a while there are others that I have to step back and re-evaluate. You might make the cut, but you're going to have to fight for it.

In other news, I could write a book about everything that is wrong with the new facebook layout. I hate, hate, hate it. From the rounded-edged pictures to the not knowing whether someone is posting a status or posting to a wall.... I despise it with a fiery passion that runs deep into my soul.

Also, my current procrastination obsession is rumandmonkey.com. Seriously. It's kind of hard to navigate, but they've got some funny shit on there.

No censors. Just friends. They encourage me. Like the bad-idea bears.

2009-03-11T22:36:00.004-04:00

Oh God I would so do Demetri Martin. lol. Tall, lanky, dark shaggy hair... swoon. And he went to law school for a few years. Did you know that? Wikipedia told me that.

OK, so thanks to a friend, I will make what I was oh so vague about at the end of the previous post known. It's really not all that exciting, I just couldn't think of a PC or fb-appropriate way to say I thought my boobs looked great on Tuesday. But as K oh so amazingly pointed out, I shouldn't censor myself for fb, and "having a good boob day is nearly as good as having a good hair day." So I celebrate. For I shall have both on Friday.

I always get this way. I always get so excited, then somehow do something which inevitably leads to my failure in a particular situation. And no, I won't be all vague about this one.

I want an internship in Iowa for this summer. Point blank. However, I haven't really started looking for one, and I'm afraid I'm going to end up working some lame-ass job that has nothing to do with legal. However, I found a job, in Des Moines, that would be perfect for me, that ACTUALLY pays (and pays well!). But, in my experience, I'll do something that will prevent me from getting it, whether it's not sending in the stuff on time, or something random. I'll get all psyched about it and then not follow through.

Same with school, to some extent. I tend to look at the big picture (too big of a picture), which means while I can see where I'll be in like, 10 years, or where I want to be and who I want to be associated with (which changes on a day to day or even hour to hour basis right now, I'm kind of being a crazy chick), I don't necessarily see what I should be doing to reach that point.

I'm kind of in a really weird mood as I write this. It's hard to explain. It feels like a turning point, but I've had these before. But I'm being really honest right now, and it's not tearing me up to do so. It's like, addressing the situation, seeing what I have to do to fix it and move forward, but doing it in such a completely unemotional way. Which is good. I've never really liked showing emotion, or what I'm actually thinking. But emotion is usually needed for revelations. So if revelations happen without a breakdown... woot. Does this make any sense at all? Meh, maybe.

Moving on

Our teachers continue to be entertaining. The latest bout is our contracts professor in story about Steve (who James is convinced is just her "fabulous flamboyant" friend from Cali) proposes to her. She goes to pick out a dress with her friends... "We have a couple of fabulous days, too much wine, a LOT of giggling..." (and try to remember for the purpose of illustration that this day she had to inadvertently wear a cardigan with dinosaurs on it!) And after Steve renegs, she goes to the dressmaker who "couldn't care less if I wore the dress, scampering along the beach toward the water to drown myself, as long as she gets paid." They're crazy, but we love 'em.

Also, this happened awhile back, before spring break, but when the rape talks turned to the implications of determining a cut-off age and guys having sex with underage girls, one of the guys made the mistake of starting his argument with "I can imagine a world..." and stopped talking. We're lawyers, not saints. The whole room started laughing.

But at this precise moment I am currently on the hunt for the mate to a pair of awesome heels I want to wear to the Law Prom on Friday night. I found one. Which means that at some point both of them were in Cambridge. And I haven't taken them home at all. Which means that somewhere in the underlayer of crap and clothes laying about my room or in the closet is the other shoe. They're like 3-inch, black, peep-toe heels. Super cute. And if I can't find it... I suppose I can wear the kitten heels I wore with the dress this summer, but I won't feel nearly as good as I intend to feel in the 3-inchers. Not that they'll stay on for long. Apparently things get pretty wild at this Barrister's Ball, and I found my flask! Oh hellz to the yes.

Love is for sissies (at least that's what you said)

2009-03-10T22:02:00.003-04:00

aka: allow me to rant.

I've realized that my last post was actually more soul-revealing and attackatory than I usually like. If you look deeper, at least. Maybe not on the surface but yeah, there are some pretty derogatory comments toward a few people. But I'm not taking them back. It's what I felt at the time, and I'm not going to apologize for those opinions. I like to say, "oops, I'm sorry," as those of you who know me know very well, even for the small things, but this is not one of those times. So back the fuck off.

I cannot wait to get the hell out of Boston and back to Iowa. Yes, the people here are great, (and I like sharing stories too and they even share their poetry about their guy they're getting over. we've got the whole trust thing going) and I'll be said to leave them after going to the darkest depths of our souls and back for a year together, but at the same time... I still can't like the whole huge city, not going out/not having the option of hanging out at night because the house is so far from anything and the subways stop at 1am. I'll have my own apartment, even if it's small. I'll be a complete bitch to my landlord and if anything is wrong I will be calling. Like tonight. Are you trying to tell me I can't pee in our own toilet because you don't want to call the guy? Ridiculous. I want to be in an actual apartment complex. That may sound weird, but that's what I want right now. (see the original location of this blog at blogger.com/ctinalk to see what I plan on having in my apartment. the list is pretty epic. it even includes a designated "no-pants" night.)

It's taking me less time to get back into the swing of things this time around. As in, getting back into studying for class after coming back from an extended break. This one was longer than October, and I had a harder time back then. I dunno why. Maybe it's because I have to, maybe it's to keep my mind busy. One thing I am sure of though is that I need to get new glasses this summer when I'm back to the optometrist. Yes, I do like the glasses I have, and if I could just get new lenses for them that would rock, I kind of like the librarian look, but my eyes are bad and get slightly worse, and I got these the summer before sophomore year, so I need an upgrade. My contacts just dry out so much before the end of the day, and I'm stuck struggling trying to finish my readings with blurriness and frustration.

And for the return of a long-abandoned tradition, back with us for this post is my "This is what I do to procrastinate this week." This time it is Plague of Kittens. I think I'm more entertained by the sound effects than anything else. You bounce kittens with a mattress, trying not to let them die by hitting the ground. They splatter entertainingly when they do die though. *ah! there's so many of them!* And you get points by bouncing them higher and if you bounce them high and hard enough you get a great angry cat scream. Hasn't failed to cheer me up yet, though I suggest you use a real moused computer, it's kind of irritating on the touchpad.

Seriously. I don't get it. Where do these mysterious bruises and scrapes keep coming from? Back of the hand, arm, calf? One of them was so prominent last Monday it led T and N to tease me about "liking it rough." I honestly don't know. Or don't remember. I'm forgetting a lot of stuff lately though. Unless it's directly related to law school or class, I'm a ditz.

I have something else I want to get off my chest (nearly literally) but I don't think it would be appropriate to put here, seeing as it gets posted to FB and all. And I don't want to sound really arrogant. But if you're intrigued enough by this vague reference again, let me know, I'll tell you.

Hmmm... I think that's it for now.

Ames recon:recap

2009-03-09T19:07:00.001-04:00

Hmmm... not sure where to start. There were some highlights of the week, but otherwise a pretty big let-down, from the very first full day to the very last minute. I think the last one was on Thursday-ish, but lets go back to Tuesday.

Got to tour Drake law with an old friend who now goes there. I really like the campus, and I'd be able to get a fairly cheap (compared to Boston) right near the campus. Even if it is a couple blocks away, I really don't mind the walking. I could see myself there, which is a feeling I did NOT get with New England or anywhere else, even Iowa (more about Iowa later). If at all possible, I will be transferring back, no matter what. Hear that guys? REGARDLESS.
Got supper with another friend that night. She layed the smack down, which I needed to hear. Nobody was telling me anything, and to hear what I thought I needed to hear anyway was good. <3

Wednesday. Got up early and went to breakfast and coffee/latte with S. Hashed out our lives for an hour. I don't remember what I really did until about 3, when I went to go meet with A, catch up with him and pour my soul. I miss those meetings. Oddly enough, I felt more open as not a student under him than I did as an advisee. Stalked AA and W, who weren't home. W was NEVER home. And stopped answering his texts. Come on man, I just wanted to see you, I have no ill intentions. Did your drunk dial get you in trouble with the missus?
Wednesday night was brilliant. After supper with my Helser boys (wonderful!) I went to drink the truth potion made of beer (aka the Gryphonbrau) at Olde Main with K. Delicious and it definitely got me talking again. Ended the night with Demetri Martin at K's. Ended up on the floor yet again. Whenever I get drunk I tend to end up on the floor: the subway station, New Years, Wednesday... Why?

Thursday was Iowa. The admissions guy was super nice and I found out I only have to be in the top 25%, but I did not like the city of Iowa City. We shall see. Supper with J again, laying more smackdown. IRHA was brilliant, hilarious, but long. Not enough time at the bars afterward. It was S's birthday, so I had two groups to go between. Finally saw A2 for more than 10 awkward seconds... no comment. Went back to K2's and made grilled cheese. I don't know how I failed at it, but I burnt the first set BAD. Even the crazy cats wouldn't eat them.

Friday. Class. Make... stuff. Pack. KQ. Kaliedoquiz was kind of a let-down after having such a huge and well-organized team under Lando last year. I was the only over-21-year-old able to leave the building after awhile, so I had to go searching for Grizzly Adams by myself, running into A2 on the way around the bars. He had me drink his Bud Light (ew, don't blame me Sam, not my choice!), about 2 cans worth, on no supper. Then I had to drive. Woot. Again, no comments from me. Hey, I tried to get him to join the KQ team, but just like a lot of people, ditched us. At least we had some pretty dedicated people. N, T, K3M, R... I'm just glad I went back to K2's and got some sleep and a shower before returning at noon. I couldn't have functioned.
Hung out at the hall desk and collected some things Swedish (aka: Absolute and Svedka vodkas) on Saturday before driving home in the pouring rain. Lightning over Cedar Rapids... fml.

Flights were fine, fast. I thought for sure that finally the airline would lose my luggage so it would be delivered instead of me having to lug it through Boston, what with only having a 20 minute layover in Minneapolis. But no. It was late on the carousel, but it was there.

Then finally today. I haven't really expressed the extent of the crap-itude of the week. Let's just say, it didn't turn out as I would have wished. So today the mom of the class noticed I was in a crappy mood and sad and had like a 20 minute talk with me about what was wrong and gave me advice. Hopefully.

Then I vented to L. And she got me laughing, gave me hope and cheered me up. Some quotes from her, randomly, I don't even remember exactly what we were looking at, I just remember typing them:

"She's not a blonde! With big boobs! She's only how old? She looks like she's already popped out three kids! The blondes are so much more likely to look like, you know, disheveled and used, like how many have you been on? And huge tits, with a light colored shirt and a black bra! I'd notice her too after 5 shots of tequila. Like whoa! Big boob!"

"Dude, I could totally make a porn out of you two. Your motivation is the frustration of law school and the ex and.... I'm a frustrated artist, I could do it objectively..."

Get ready for a mind-fuck

2009-03-06T02:28:00.003-05:00

I kind of feel like being INCREDIBLY vague tonight, as I slip past my self-imposed "go to sleep time" quietly.

So, here goes. Iowa. Not bad. Pretty good weather. Great friends. Er, some of them are. The ones that I try to listen to their stories too but inevitably end up obsessing over my current worries. The ones that actually show up and tell you when they're going to see you and, and, yeah...

There is a phenomenon that I will refer to Schrodinger's cat in Iowa as well. You never know until you open the can of worms whether the cat is alive or not. And you have no control over the cat, or the box. But the cat, well, you don't see the cat enough to actually figure out whether it's alive or dead, and sometimes the cat will make gestures towards being alive, but then it keels over and acts like it's dead for weeks at time. So after a while you stop just wondering, and start just being pissed at the cat. It needs to either be doing an Irish Jig or wearing cement shoes in the Charles River. Alive, or dead. Because eventually, the scientist is going to get tired of the cat's games and move on to a more reliable experiment.

Then there's the pothead. The one who started smoking pot just for fun, but lately the drug has been taking up more and more of their time. They start missing classes to toke up and even friends of friends start to worry. An intervention is talked about, but noone will do it because of the fear of repercussions and losing the person permanently.

And finally, the one thing you've finally been talked into and convinced that you have to do. But will probably chicken out in the process of and not complete. A mission that has been assigned to you for nearly four years, yet only in recent months has there been any possible hope or glimmer of a possible success. The plan may play out perfectly, the time that you've waited for and know exactly what to say when will come and go, with no conclusion, and just a "stupid stupid stupid," playing over and over and over in your head, instead of focusing on this new more reliable experiment.

Yay! If you can tell me what those analogies mean, or if you want clarification, you can tell me what you think they mean, but I may not answer. There's a reason they're analogies and not solid facts.

Other highlights of my trip to Ames thus far:
Mandie!
Kelly!
Kimber
Jewels!
Drake Law (If I had to pick between Iowa and Drake, I'm not sure which I'd chose. Drake campus is amazing, but Iowa is such a higher-ranked school. AND I found out I only have to be in the top 25%, since I was a genius mofo and kept my Iowa residency. Drake has it's drawbacks too though....)
Inferiority complex.
Pokage
Driving
Swear words
Being one of the guys again
My boys!!!
Hearing honest opinions/being told the truth
Excitement
Pissed off Japanese minnow Farmer
The Amazing truth potion made of beer, aka: the Gryphonbrau from Olde Main (it got me talking and admitting things I usually would never tell)
Realizing it was the plan that I not sleep with anyone this break

er... yeah. the end. more to come.

Here are my observations thus far

2009-03-01T18:55:00.005-05:00

~My carry-on bag looks like a whore, with plane-side tickets from American, United and Northwest.

~The airline gods must have been smiling on me this time around. I landed in Moline a few minutes ahead of schedule.

~I've become an angry driver. I tend to yell grossly obscene things at the other drivers.

~Heaven on Earth is rocking to Bohemian Rhapsody while cruising down the highway.

~You've succeeded if your hairstylist says she's loving the color you've dyed your hair.

~Alcohol does magical things in my car.

~Dogs like me. I think this is a good thing. On a mostly unrelated note I've decided I'm going to marry K's next-door neighbor and we will have beautiful babies.

~Some people will surprise you when you least expect it. For the better. And others surprise you when you realize you need to start looking out for the ones who always seemed to be able to look out for themselves.

~I love the sense of humor my friends bring out of me back in Iowa. Example: The only explanation I could come up with for a license plate that said IDVDBYO on an ISU specialty plate was : I'd venereal disease bring your own. "Ya know, we're having a party. You need to bring your own STD though because you know I don't date clean boys..."

The "sexy" questions

2009-02-23T21:47:00.002-05:00

So it's a little bit of a soapbox and a lot of babble tonight, just so you're prepared...

So we're just getting into what people call the "sexy" cases in Constitutional and Criminal law, both figuratively and literally. We're studying rape in criminal and contraception in constitutional. Now, I should preface con law by saying that I hope my group keeps up what it's been doing and has a drink or two before con law class... the only class we happen to have three times a week.
Now. I don't want to go into a full discourse on these, because I've just done the readings for them and we haven't gone over them in class or in depth, which can be mutually exclusive, as I've found. But the sections about rape make me feel slightly better. Now I know, as a girl, I'm supposed to have the utmost respect for rape laws and protest any rationalizations of the perpetrators. But we all have this vague notion of what we think it is, and after reading the statutes, it becomes clear that what we think might be or might have been, actually isn't. Now, that sounds convoluted, but... eh, what the hell, I'm just talking, I'll move on.
Contraception. The cases I've read, I'm not sure I can fully follow where the court is coming from, (I remember being completely baffled by the concept of the penumbra of liberties the Bill of Rights gives us, supposedly) but I do agree with the outcome. Using birth control is something inherently private, and while the court there specifically refers to the couples engaged in married relations (or, "sexual powers," as the court terms it, like being married gives people supernatural abilities) I think the court, in its penchant for changing it's rulings to fit the changing culture and society in general, would expand this to extra-marital sex as well. Now, this isn't an issue since the rule forbidding even the USE of any kind of birth control was struck down in the case we're studying, but as a chick, I couldn't be happier. As a chick who doesn't want kids at all, I could do a happy dance. The legislature being able to regulate whether or not people use ANY kind of birth control (this term, by the case means, of course, condoms, the pill, any IUD, some... foam stuff... I'm not exactly sure what that is, but it existed at the time of the cases, back in the 70's-ish(I should note I'm doing all of this without my Con law book in front of me. Please forgive any mis-readings)) just gives me this disturbing mental image of CIA agents digging through some couples bed-side table. The court essentially says this is unacceptable, as the Bill of Rights gives us the freedom of life, liberty and property, and the right to due process. They interpret the Constitution as giving us the right to privacy as well, which this law exceedingly violates. This is one issue where my liberal side shines through. Look for more of it when it comes to Roe v. Wade. But that must wait for the next edition.

Oh my gosh!! Meeting the parents!? My old roommate's boyfriend is going to meet her parents next weekend, and they've only been dating, like, a month. Seriously? Ugh. 1) One month is not long enough. I know people do things differently, but you have to go through a few more trials and tribulations before you know if you're strong enough together. 2) I decided a long time ago (sophomore year-ish) that my parents won't meet anyone of mine until there's a ring. It's not that I'd be hiding the guy from them in a bad way, or them from him, I just want my life to be my own, without any pressures or inclinations from forces outside my control. Now, she's dating a guy from my high school class, so maybe I'm a little protective too, but I think I'd feel like this regardless of circumstances.

So I don't like to put those million question polls up, but I have a secret addiction to them. So when I'm real bored I'll do them. So if you have a desire to know a LOT about random little things in my life, go here. Otherwise, proceed with your reading.

I want it to be Friday. I want it to be Saturday. I want to know how the week of Spring Break will go. I want to see the people back in Iowa. But I have to admit, it's a little hard when everyone you want to see doesn't seem to show any enthusiasm whatsoever. I mean, yes, there are exceptions. M, you're the first person I'm going to see when I get there. K, I imagine we'll crash your primping session. K2, I am so grateful to have your couch. P, thanks for changing your schedule to show me around Drake. But the rest? It's just frustrating.

So the quotes today are brought to you by my Civil Procedure book. Yeah, it's actually pretty funny*.
*For about a paragraph. Then it gets boring again.
"Often, the result is a notice filled with legalese, unintelligible to the lay person." [The following are actual responses from people who had received notice they were members of a class suing antibiotics manufacturers for alleged antitrust violations.]

"Dear Mr. Clerk: I have received your notice that I owe you $300 for selling drugs. I have never sold any drugs; but I have sold a little whiskey once in a while."

and... wait for it... my favorite:

"Dear Sir: I received this paper from you. I guess I really don't understand it, but if I have been given one of those drugs, nobody told me why. If it means what I think it does, I have not been with a man in nine years."

Lenten sacrifice? Being sober for Con Law

2009-02-19T22:41:00.008-05:00

How awesome of a feeling is it when a professor knows you are so prepared for a presentation that they don't even really ream you like other groups had been questioned? One of the best, I have to say. That's what happened on Thursday. My group had to present for contracts, and other groups had stumbled around and she had made it look painful for them, but we got up there, took charge and she rarely interrupted us, as she had many other groups.

Ugh, but we had to dress up for it. I HATE dressing up. Well, I shouldn't say that. I get all excited, because it's a rare occasion that I DO dress up, so I get excited to show off, but then I remember once I'm all strapped in that I hate being dressed up. I would nearly rather walk around in public in my underwear than be dressed up in a suit or similar contraption.

So the rest is pretty much random thoughts, don't expect much continuity. Not that you should anyway, ya know, it's me, you know who you're dealing with. Now, Proceed:

Oh yeah, I'm just that good. If you didn't know, I dyed my hair about a week ago, and since then about 5 people have told me they want my color. It's definitely an auburn, not a brilliant red, but it's still good, and I love it.

It's crazy how some people can see the same things you do, and not even know really what's going on. I mean yes, I've filled this friend in on things and yes, we have the same frustrations. But when she out of the blue says, "I dunno, it just looks like that face is just a mask," and I haven't even told her what I think about the person/subject, that to me means that I'm not imagining things. Yes, I was vague on purpose, but I just wanted to get that out there.

*cue complete non-sequitur transition*

But Friday was a good day. I haven't done Property reading in about a week and a half, but I wasn't called on, so whatevs. Lunch at this new place, Bolocco's, with Leanna and James. Delish actually. Then to the Tam to have a few pre-Constitutional Law drinks. I have to admit, it makes con law MUCH more enjoyable. Tipsy by 1:30 in the afternoon eh? It's a great way to live life. And Jame's mom sent him King's Cake for Mardi Gras, complete with beads, so tipsy, with cake. And beads. Yes, I got beads. I'm not telling how. :-P

But for a little bit more hard and fast talking:
It's all downhill from here tweeples! The contracts group rocked it out in the presentation, the paper is, well, we'll call it done, it's really a draft anyway, and I did SOOOOOO much better on the Civil Procedure quiz. I would have blown the curve if it ends up being like the last one. We shall see. But there's no stress from here til Spring Break, just studying and packing.
Believe me, I miss you.

It still seems so far away.

So a few more quotes to tide you over: still more legal-related
"The per curiam decision means it's not even worthy of an author. 'We figured this out in 15 minutes! Why did it take you so long, court of appeals, to get it wrong?'" ~Sorenson

"Yeah, I was the defendant. Yeah, I think I got off, I'm not sure though. I just ran out of the courtroom at the end!" ~Ed, walking down the street, talking on the phone. There were some odd looks, I'll admit.

"Why is there a cartoon living in my future apartment? Is it the medication again?" ~Taxiera DeSousa, welcome to the quote board

EEEEEE!!!
1 week

"We'll stipulate that, yes."

2009-02-14T23:00:00.007-05:00

So we had been counting the money in our pockets at lunch, which is highly relevant to the following exchange:

Homeless guy: "Do you have any spare change?"
Me: "I have exactly 30 cents and a Canadian penny. I think I may be worse off than you."
Homeless guy: "..."

No, I don't have a soul, but you all knew this... (hmmm, on that point I'm still conflicted. Did I gain it back last summer, or did someone just say I did? I don't know who to believe on that one. I WANT to believe the person on both sides of the argument.)

So I had **THE BEST** dream on Sunday night. The kind with basically a plot and places that actually exist and people you know and things you'd never do in real life because you're too chicken, and things you *wish* would happen in real life. The best part was that even though I kept waking up, I kept going back to the dream, just starting in a different location. Think: Central Campus with a little bit of the Iowa State Fairgrounds thrown in, complete with ski lift. Sigh. If every night were like that I would never wake up again!

Good grief. I recently realized just how much of a sequestered group my high school is. I mean, yes, some of us get out and experience things, we find other things and other people and other experiences to define ourselves by. But there are people who, years after graduation, are still making the rounds of the guys (or girls) of the C-W graduates. The townies. Yes, if you find the love of your life in HS and stick with it, or if coincidence happens later, what the hell, that's great, but come on people. Stop playing "Let's trade" and move on with your lives. The incestuous pool that is my HS is something I'm glad I never really got into.

So for those of you that actually read this and actually care when I might be coming back to Ames, I haven't been proclaiming it a lot, mainly because I wanted to get my Legal Research and Writing paper done with, but it's one section (that I might not do because ya know, it's only a draft, I can work on that over break) away from done. But now I have a contracts presentation on Thursday, and a Civil Procedure quiz. But apart from all of that, I WILL be in Ames on February 28th, and you know I want to see you, so plan on it! It's 10 days from today!! (but it seems so much further away, right? yeah...)

10 days....

2 years stupider, 1 city wiser

2009-02-14T12:43:00.001-05:00

You haven't really experienced a city until you see a guy peeing in public... in broad daylight no less. L and I were heading to bailiff at the Mock Trial competition, and across the street from the school, a guy was peeing. Into the street. No like, tree or anything to hide him. Not even a car. I laughed. L was disturbed. Figures.

Our term as bailiff was pretty easy, just keeping time. And they didn't even give us all the stuff bailiffs usually get, like a gun. They said they wouldn't arm us, and I said "It'd have to be an AR-15 anyway, that's the only gun I know how to handle." They replied? "Remind me to stay away from your courtroom."

But for better or for worse, I guess I know how to dress like a lawyer should. As I was leaving the Suffolk County Courthouse, I was told by a guard, "See you tomorrow." I try to pride myself at bucking the crowd, but at least I know I can play the game if I have to. (In my attempt to buck the crowd, ask me what my law office and practice will be like. It's gonna kick all kinds of ass, for me and my clients.)

And then as I was finally getting supper at like 9:30 at night, I think I got hit on by a very drunk Irish guy. He had an accent, that's for sure, but I couldn't really discern what he was saying over the slurring. meh.

It's great that the people I tend to associate with don't have a such a high opinion of themselves. In fact, we tend to refer to ourselves as 'assclowns'. True story. AAAND we tend to make fun of the people who think they're better than others, the pompous art lawyers, the clueless law review guy... Good story on the clueless law review guy actually:

He was on a panel for 1L's, trying to prepare us for semester tests last semester, and when it came to his turn to talk about one of our professors, he had no idea what year we were, or, it seemed, what month it was. The girls will admit, he was cute... until he opened his mouth. He seemed to think we were into our second semester at least and was confused as to why we still had these questions. "So, you guys have taken your midterms, right?" "Um, no. We take them in about 3 weeks." "Oh, well, I'm a 3L and I'm on law review so I can't keep track of things like timing." Gee, thanks a lot fucknugget, but we came to get help, not to hear about your credentials, we couldn't care less. And Ed made a good point about him when we were having Coldstone one day and he walked by the window. "Ya know, he thinks he's all high and mighty, but the Dean told us WE were the most gifted class the school has seen." "Well yeah, but they'll tell that to next years class too..." "But he's a 3L this year. That means he is *two years* stupider than me."

Like I said, we don't think too highly of ourselves, but we'll cut people down if they really do deserve it.

Demetri Martin, you can have my babies anytime... Wait, that's not right either. But I do know someone back home who kind of looks like him, which rocks. Important Things was pretty great. Not as good as his regular standup, but still acceptable. And I get to see him every week. <3 "I think the best place to be in an earthquake would be in bed with someone. and if you timed it right you could seem like the biggest stud in the world. "How was it?" ... "You moved my apartment." "

Ok, I swear I'm trying to ignore all the Valentine's Day crap going down, but I have to put a few words in. Even if I did have a boyfriend going into a Valentine's Day, I would make it VERY clear that I did not want to do anything in commemoration, up to and including refusing to see him on that day. A day should not have that much built up for it. And I will not forget the wonderful Singles Awareness Day ice cream runs we took while I was on Merchant. Maybe that's what'll happen... have a girls night each year instead of pander to the card companies... I like it.

And now it is officially only 2 weeks til Spring Break!!!! Just get me to next Friday with my paper done, and I'm on the downhill slide from there!

Why yes, I do use "sharted" in regular conversation

2009-02-10T23:23:00.000-05:00

I had to. The entire city smelled horrible on the walk to school on Friday, so I described it to my friends as "It smells like National By-Products sharted on the Commons." Like, as if Clinton AND Cedar Rapids dropped a load on Boston. Seriously, the people from those cities know how bad it can get. The slogan for Highway 30 in Eastern Iowa could really just be... "Historical Lincoln Highway 30... come smell us."

Never. Again. Will I get that drunk when I have to take the subway back. I think it had to be the Khalua and creams... 3 of them, not weak ones either, within about a half hour span. It might have been the about 6 beers, or the mixing beer and liquor earlier in the night recklessly and without any amount of caution, or the 3 games of flip cup... you name it, I did it Saturday night. It was fun, and nothing bad happened til I got back to the house. I don't know whether to attribute that to the phone call I always make to someone to make sure I get back to the house ok, or that it was only 12:30 when I got off at Porter. But I knew I was drunk as all f**k when I got in the shower, started the water, and only then decided I was too drunk to take a shower. (usually you have a little bit of sober person in there saying, "No, you don't have to shower now, that can wait till morning.") The hangover was wicked too, but I nursed that pretty quickly. And the gods were smiling on me, because I thought I lost my ring that night, but I found it today in my cleaning. Thank goodness. (side tangent alert: I love that ring, it's simple and pretty, I've had it since junior year of High School, and it's really my fidget object. I have to have something to play with, and what better than that? I don't know how long it would take to find another one like it. And one that didn't make me break out where I wore it. I, for some reason, am extremely sensitive to metals. I can't wear earrings much, I even pick my watches in large part by how little metal actually comes in contact with the skin. Also partially the reason I don't wear my glasses more. I don't like it, but I deal.)

So the hangover nearly prevented me from going and having a pretty fun time with BSOS Saturday afternoon. So I was downing Sierra Mist and 7-Up and cheese and crackers trying to get a balance going again. But I did make it out of the house into the 50-degree weather (come-on! the Boston weather has some serious hormonal issues. It goes through menopause every week, I swear it!) and met up with the BSOS group. I even got to see Ian, one of the guys from the after-no-pants-pantsless party, again, and he ended up being in the group I was in going to Downtown Crossing. Guess what we did? We played charades across the train tracks. We got some of the regular passengers playing as well, at one point this sort-of-crazy guy came along and started singing a Bon Jovi song and the entire place joined in. There were some fun people that joined in, some good guessers, and good things to be guessed. When you get "mile high club" on the first guess, you know it's a good day.

So that was my weekend. I'm currently over halfway done with the week from hell. We've got like, 4 double sessions this week in addition to regular classes, 30 pages for each regular session (do the math, that's a shitton of pages), and a summary judgment motion brief due. Even if we didn't get the 4-day weekend this week (oh yeah, we get Friday and Monday off, be jealous), we'd have earned it anyway.

16 days! Sweet!

ah ah ah! You're pregnant or you're not!

2009-02-06T23:57:00.002-05:00

So I've realized: The colder it gets out here, the more inventive my swearing gets. Yes, I realize it will never be as cold as -20, but nonetheless. Usually it's just the basic PG:13 stuff, but ugh, Thursday it was "f***nuggets" and "t**twaffle" and "spermburper." Plus I'm sure there were others the cold has erased from my memory.

Yeah. Sure. Why not.

Just when I thought you had reached a point of common understanding (yet again), sigh. I know there are points in a conversation when it might be appropriate to joke about still liking someone, but when it comes down to the guy actually professing his love for you still... seriously... it makes for some very awkward turtle pauses. He's one of my great friends, and I wouldn't trade him for the world, but come on man. We didn't even date. AAANND that was two years ago.

My favorite part of law school? The lunch conversations. Friday it was focused around the goth kids continually circling the food court. "So emo kids are just goths who like pink?" And shrinkage. Oh the shrinkage. A guy in very bright teal, very tight jeans had not thought his outfit through. "When it's cold, it shrinks up like a startled turtle!" ~Ed.

I usually don't brag, but lately I've been getting my hopes up again that I am not incompetent. How did I come to this conclusion? I've been doing Sudoku. At least one a night. And the fact that I can do one thing well makes it easier to sleep at night. That and the fact "Hey, at least I'm not pregnant." Ya know, because Daniel Tosh says that's the way to know better days are on the way.

However, the quote above? "ah ah ah! You're pregnant or you're not!" Came from our contracts professor when a girl wouldn't answer the question directly or completely. They really don't fuck around with making the point, that you're not making a point. With sometimes hilarious results.

21 days!!!!!!

Filler tweet (that is what you call them, right?)

2009-02-02T21:42:00.003-05:00

Really a filler post. I don't have a lot to report. I've been pretty busy what with school and such, and I'm trying to cut down on my unhealthy obsession with the internet. So I'm going to stop taking Roger to school everyday. This should help. And it will also help me focus on studying more anyway, which is probably a good thing.

I realized I choose really random times to be impulsive. Usually bad times. The oldest time I can remember is this summer, most recent, this afternoon. I should probably stop. They're gonna get me in trouble.

Got to a party of a law school friend out in Framingham on Saturday night. Played some Rockband, rocked out guitar, sounded like tonedeaf hooker when I sang songs I didn't know and felt like a spastic epileptic when tried drums. Not pretty. We turned it into a drinking game, which was interesting. People would gang up on a person for awhile, so D was handing me shot after shot for awhile. Luckily they let me pass on the Tequila shots in favor of gin (GOOD gin, we're talking Bombay Sapphire here) and 99. Was a great night though... got back to the house mid-Sunday afternoon. Then had to work on a paper due the next day. Life fail.

So there are days where I will literally have every single decent shirt I own laid out on the bed and will still be standing there going "I have nothing to wear." oh the joys of being a girl.

Another joy of being a girl? Being completely irrational and calling on a friend just to let out all your frustration in a ridiculous rant. "You mean this crap comes with the estrogen? That's not fair, dammit!" <3 K.

"It's the pelvic thrust that drives you insa-a-ane!" OMG I just found out where that was from! I remember Eric using that line, but I never knew where the hilariousness came from. I'm sure it doesn't help that I'm listening to the Alvin and the Chipmunks version of the The Time Warp.

"No, that answer is just...no, there's no way.." (aka: if you picked this one, you're just dumb.) Civ Pro Sorenson

"If I can't punish, then it's just no fun." ~Civ Pro Sorenson

"The client letter is trying to put it in terms that regular people can understand and realizing that you are no longer a normal person. I'm sorry about that." ~The AntiChrist, aka prof Meltzer

"Sometimes the only thing left to do is to wrap your arms around each other one last time, and just let go." ~Gossip Girl

I don't know what to title this as

2009-01-30T21:06:00.007-05:00

I think my brain is finally short circuiting. Seriously. There are some jokes now that have to be explained, and I *should* get them, and Thursday, I don't remember little part-lets of the day. And yes, I was sober during the things I don't remember. Like walking up the stairs to the Cherry Room. I had to have done it. I just don't remember doing it. oops.

Ok people, just so you realize... I'd hope you already know, but if you get random texts, saying random things... don't worry. It just completely means "I love you, I miss you, and I wish I were there so here's a little bit of my life from here." Not matter what they say, they all mean about the same. It's true

There is one perk to living in the Boston area that I'll miss once I'm back in Iowa. The Sam Adams brewery. Private open houses for specialty beers = wonderful.

As of tomorrow night I'll have a pretty good ratio going for parties:weekends. I'm pretty stoked. It'll be 3/4 weekends that I've had a party. NoPants, Erin's and now Leanna's. And I'm just going to discount the 4th weekend as the 'lost' weekend. Hey, at least I'm getting out.

Somewhat related to the parties is the lunch convo the group of us had today. It went round and round about sex and getting rid of anyone with an STD and intelligence testing and dead babies and mandatory vasectomies (they could be reversed!) and bestiality. Yes, I did just say that. It's kind of a long story, so I'll just give you some quotable highlights:
"Any port in a storm!" In reference to when you look for anyone during a dry spell, or when you're alone at the end of the night and you're looking for a hookup. Ew.
"I know some pretty kinky and freaky conservatives. They might not be open to new experiences, but they experiences they do have!..."
"By the time you've waited the 6 weeks for the appointment there your flu is already gone." "Yeah, but the chlamydia is still there." Yay for the Canadian health care system.
"See, the reason guys are so bad at sex is that they don't get enough practice." Yes, I'm so sure.

Ok, so I actually LIKED constitutional law before I came to law school. How twisted is that. Maybe it has to do with the professor that taught it at Iowa State. Deam. He scared me shitless, and I never talked in those classes, but I loved every minute. It might also have been the people I took it with too. Yeah, they were pretty cool... But I think the depth we went into them and the whole policy rationale and detail made it great, along with all the other Deam-related rhetoric that went along with it. Here, we skim the top of the cases and don't even get to understand the rules. It sucks.

But there are a few good things coming out of law school:
"I like my Thursdays to watch 30 Rock, not to go downstairs and smoke pot with my neighbors."
"So we got into an argument and a pushing match and I pushed him hard... with my fist"..."I decide to sue him over land boundaries, and he takes the opportunity to sue me for my last assault on him." (meaning there's more than 1 assault?) "But you know, the property dispute could really be tainted by the bloody assault I committed."
There seems to be a pattern. Like our profs have real anger and drug issues and don't play well with their neighbors.

I had no idea that Starbucks coffee cups could be so deep, but here's a quote I particularly like from the side of one of them. "The irony of commitment is that it's deeply liberating. In work. In play. In love. The act frees you from the tyranny of your internal critic, from the fear that likes to dress itself up and parade around as rational hesitation. To commit is to remove your head as the barrier to your life."

28 days!

Decompression mode engage

2009-01-27T23:29:00.004-05:00

I just realized that our library has to employ an emergency stop system on their bookshelves. What part of this is supposed to make me happy? or feel safe, for that matter?

I'm also going to nickname my car the "mobile omnidirectional neutralization and termination eradicator," which, as you Big Bang Theory watchers may know, ALSO stands for MONTE. (but I'll still spell it Monty)

And this is the reason I will never sell my books, at least to any stuck-up tool or back to the bookstore. I write all my little notes regarding the cases, but in addition...well, I make my own little notes too. Mostly quotes, and that made for interesting review in contracts today. We were going over the cases and as I flipped the page, I read, "They always say that nice guys finish last. I don't think that's true at all. My boyfriend's the nicest guy in the world and he always finishes first." Reason #1 to not read contracts while watching Comedy Central.

And I don't know why, but I am having really odd dreams. Really vivid ones too. Like catching a mouse in a snowstorm in a mansion with an egg, which turns out to be a mis-shapen wiffle ball... and having people visit me in Boston... and calling someone I haven't even met (and never really want to) a "cock-pocket." sigh.

Decompression via P.S. I love you:
Why am I so damn afraid? I don't... I want... shit.
"It doesn't matter what job you have, or what you do or what you don't do, or which friends you have, [when you lose that person] you're alone no matter what." Nobody wants to be alone.
However, it's a wonderful feeling when you finally realize that a person is finally out of your life, that you've moved on. They'll always shape how you view the world, but you wouldn't be where you are this very moment without them, whether that's good or bad is up to you to decide.
I hate it when I make such pansy realizations, but they're true.

I think I'm minorly allergic to BananaNut Cheerios. There's no reason for me to be, but I think I am.

So, after this weekend, this week, as horrid as it is, is so much better. Just being around people helps, which is grrrr-eat. I also got my contracts grade back. Now, don't get any ideas, I'm not one of the 2 A's that everyone wants to murder right now, but I did very decently, considering my recent complete lack of competence in the others. But I do have to say.... I kicked all kinds of ass on the multiple choice. That's not going to get me my own practice, but it saved my ass.

I want to grow my hair out. I have discovered this slowly over the past few weeks. I don't know why I cut my hair so short at the end of summer, I really didn't mean to, but looking back at the pictures of the London trip, I really want to have that hair again... the long, strawberry-red-brown layers down to my chest (sorry, that's the only measure I really can use, it's true)... That trip was the start of something wonderful. Aaaand I'm gonna dye it again. One of these days it's just going to start growing in the color I want, and when that day comes, I will have won the game. (It's true, actually, I hate to go into such a long paragraph about my hair, but my oldest best friend has the same thing, we dye our hair, it starts coming in that color, it kind of rocks. Besides, everyone loves a redhead. Seriously.)

1 month til Iowa, 31 days til Ames!!

Remember when?

2009-01-23T15:59:00.004-05:00

You know it's a good case when your in-class description of it is "drunken, carousing, cheating husband spends weekend with morphine-popping whore."

I just bought NoDoz (first time since highschool) and sleeping pills in the same transaction. The lady picked them both up, looked at me. I said, "I'm a law student. Don't ask questions, just keep scanning." I have up til today been very opposed to using caffeine, but I got a free latte, and for the hour following was more focused than I have been all semester. I was paying attention, and my notes rock. This could be bad...

Mandie, hope you don't mind, but I found this note of yours again, and I decided to do my own. (don't look at me like that, i was so bored i was starting to actually do research for school) And of course, even if they don't pertain to you (or you think they don't) you can still ask what they mean, there are no secrets in these remembrances. (ok, so there's one, but you have to find it. I just won't answer) All others? Up for grabs.

Remember that time I was drunk at IRHA?

Remember the time we stayed up until 4 watching crappy late night cartoons?

Remember that time I was glad there was pizza that time I was drunk at IRHA because it was such excellent drunk food?

Remember the time we spent two weeks arguing about that constitutional law case so heated and passionately we'd yell at each other... in public?

Remember the time we made snow turtles?

Remember the time I nearly beaned you with the golf ball I hit?

Remember the time we didn't wear pants?

Remember the time we'd take excursions into the timber for hours?

Remember the time you turned informant for us? (ps: thanks for that)

Remember the walk in the rain?

Remember the time we traded boy stories and turned accomplice for each other? :-)

Remember when you taught me the pelvic thrust?

Remember when I made you finish my Blue Long Island at Beaudelaire?

Remember all the random dips into fountains on campus?

Remember when my only response to you was, "I hid in a *bush*!"?

Remember that was the first night I liked beer?

Remember the time I discovered you were a worse gossip than I was?

Remember the time we got yelled at by the Regional Director for having pillow fights in the our hotel room?

Remember that time we made the video of us campaniling?

Remember the time I choked on a popsicle... multiple times...on Central Campus?

Remember the time we met up for $1 pancakes on Central Campus for VEISHEA...drunk?

Remember when I said I was going to kill you for making me go on the rollercoasters?

Remember the time we waited in line for pancakes for an hour, then gave up?

Remember the time we were going to go party with the bands, then ended up at your apartment with Boone's Farm?

Remember when your futon ate me?

Remember when they tried to make us eat hippie food, and the cake was warmer than the chicken, and we'd rather subsist on cookies and bananas than portobello sandwiches?

Do you remember like I do? Do you think about the fun we've had, or have you forgotten what we meant to each other? We've changed, or grown up, or moved on, or maybe we're still strong. But after all the drama, all the years, all the tears, all the laughs, I really just wanted to say that I remember. And I miss you.

Also, a final note. I'm an assclown. And not in a good way. And no, I don't really want to talk about it.

pps: 5 weeks

It felt strangely like summer, except I was drinking Bud Light

2009-01-18T19:21:00.005-05:00

But hey, at least I remember this night!

*wait, that rhymed. I swear I didn't mean for it to.

I should probably preface this by saying that no matter how odd my Facebook status gets, it's usually a point to an inside-ish joke, and in no way meaning that I actually got married. You find a group of people on the way to drunk enough and the littlest joke can get out of hand.

I will also say that this is a long post. Most of it focuses on the party, but then it goes lots of places.

So the invite was "So my boyfriend's grade school friend is having a party at his house. You should come!" So I walked nearly 2 miles in the cold (10 degree) weather, realizing once again after awhile my directional skills are excellent. I was able to cut about a 1/4 mile off by taking a shortcut and ending up at the exact street I needed to. Keep in mind this is in a town I do NOT know. At all.

So me being the punctual one that I am, showed up a little after 9, which is when I was told to be there. Very few people there. Actually, if it had stayed like this, it wouldn't have been so bad either. This was definitely a guys apartment, which is cool. Guitars in the dining room, sweet, no dining room table. Stacks of beer cases in the kitchen (wait, I shouldn't judge, I won't lie, this will probably be my apartment when I get one. wait, that was my room this summer, what am I saying?), as well as a giant package of toilet paper. In the kitchen. yes, I'm serious.

Played a bit of mariocart (never played, now I want a wii) started on my awful drink, Mountain Dew and the remains of about 3 liquors I had in my room (from what I can deduce, SoCo, Midori and New Amsterdam. They don't mix). Then the door opened and about 10 law school people flooded in. Not what I wanted. Oh well, did shots of tequila (bad idea) and washed it down with lime and a shot of 99 blackberries (a worse idea).

Then the guys started playing dodge beer! It's hard to explain, so I'll explain it only if you ask and when I'm back in Ames for my spring break (ps: 6 weeks!!!) but this was when it felt a little like summer again. At some point I counted... there were 12 people in the kitchen, gathered around watching Dodge Beer, and I was the ONLY girl. And the best part was, these guys were probably the most comfortable-with-their-sexuality straight guys I've ever seen, so shenanigans inherently ensued (see pictures on fb). There was a guy who was continually yelling at E to find him a wife, so finally I got offered up as the sacrificial chick. Don't worry, he was harmless. That and an annulment would cost too much.

So Dodge beer, Gradually Lit, Thumper, and circle of death. Hilarious. People started heading out and I realized it was 2:30 and I was 2 miles from home. Luckily I was forced to take a ride back to the house from a girl from law school, though I couldn't tell you her name. Talked to a couple people online, then passed out until 1:30 Saturday afternoon. Vundebar.

All in all, I liked partying with those guys. No questions, just drinks, no pretense, just fun. I go to parties to have fun and escape from reality for a few hours, never to hook up. That's just not me. (ok, so I *tried* to make that who I was around about my junior/early senior year, and it just went horridly wrong. At least I learned my lesson well). So drinking games and Mariocart are right up my alley. AND this time I wasn't freaking out about getting out of the house just to get to the subway so I could get away from the skeezy roommate, as opposed to last week. Win.

Now on to general happenings.

First: Law school quotes:
"It meets all the functional requirements for a bathroom, but everytime I go near it, I start sobbing, then I laugh, then I cry again." Finneran. Haven't had a lot from her in awhile.

"Harassment is bad. As fun as it is, it's bad." <3 Sorenson.

Also coming out of Civil Procedure are the fact that I just want to be dumb, but pure of heart. But apparently that standard for no lawyers is no longer valid. And I kind of want to be a judge just to impose sanctions. "You must march outside the courthouse with a sign that says, "I am an assclown," for violating that statute. No go!"

"My rhymes are so potent that in this small segment
I made all of the ladies in the first two rows pregnant
Yeah that's right, sometimes my lyrics are sexist
But you lovely bitches and hoes should know
I'm trying to correct this"
2 entire points to the first person to tell me where this is from. And my points are hard to get. fyi

Damn I hate being sick. This cold is like the mother of all colds, coupled with a cough that makes me sound like I'm gonna hack up a lung.

I seem to be sleeping an extraordinary amount. I don't know whether it has to do with the being sick or something else, but I slept for like 9 hours, was up for only 9, then back to sleep. No artificial "help" either. And I always dream lately. Not that I remember most of them, but two nights ago the dream involved paper writing, A, K, M and J. And a girl running up to me asking for help. And last night it was like a parade of formers. Curious.

I am such a hypocrite. Of some sort. I read about some of my friends excursions into the world, a'la random makeout sessions, and that got me to thinking, "You know, I'm a bit jealous, I don't really do that..." But then I got to thinking, a majority of my sessions (aka: all but 3 guys) have started that way. Obviously nothing random's been happening lately, hence my rant about why I go to parties, but funny how time'll alter your perception of things.

Also, NO gmailspam, I do NOT, in fact, need to enlarge my "love stick," whatever that may be. Apparently whatever girl I'm with (hmmm, apparently gmail knows more about my relationships than I do. A girl?) really wants more than she's getting. But I should probably be concerned, because I remember none of this conversation.

Snow!! Good grief how much of a hermit do I have to be to not realize that it was supposed to DUMP snow on Boston? I was going to microwave my lunch when I saw the ginormous flakes coming down. Lunch was put on hold while I went out and played (yes, by myself. when it comes to snow i have no shame) in it. Made footprints where no footprints were before, and fell straight backwards into the worlds most perfect snow angel, eons better than the snow turtles S and I made after our trip to the bar.

but even though i have no shame, the only shame was that i had to enjoy the snow alone. God i miss you guys.

oh dear, i just saw my neighbor watching me rock out to foxtrot. i waved and thought to myself, if only you knew what was coming out of the speakers. it is time for this post to end.

6 weeks til Ames!!

I'm gonna be sick...

2009-01-15T13:38:00.002-05:00

So the first wave of grades came out Monday. I'm not sure what exactly to say. I guess I will say that I'm glad we still have three more classes of grades to come, because I did not do as well as I would have liked. But the good thing is no-one is really talking about them. Everyone is acting depressed and unhappy, but no-one is talking. I'm kinda really scared right now. I HAVE to be in the top 50% of the class to transfer. Please let it happen.

I guess that means I really have to hit the books now. But so are others, and it's bringing back the return of law school quotes. And there was much rejoicing. (and in the frozen land of Nador they were forced to eat Robin's minstrals. And there was much rejoicing.)

"If you're doing your property reading be prepared with some toothpicks to keep your eyes open. It's about as exciting as having a pen shoved up your ass." Ed, the most toddler-esque married guy I know.

"My cousin is in the living room standing upright with her foot over her head and twirling around and I'm like 'sit the fuck down, I'm gonna be sick.' I have to roll out of bed and hope I bounce upright because I cannot do a sit-up." Ed

"I'm kinda glad he's making us do more of the pleadings and replies, because I know I'll need to do a lot more of them before I feel comfortable doing them for my own client. Is this right? Is this right? Is my guy gonna lose because I'm an assclown!?" Ed

HUH? But...what? ... Huh? Apparently some chick at Pensacola Christian College was disciplined for having "optical intercourse," or "making eye babies" with a guy. Wow. No words. Sounds like fun?

"Other authorities find this concept a 'freak hybrid born of the illicit intercourse of torts and contracts.' It later ceased necessarily to be consensual..." That's what she said? My property book.

So in my slight procrastination (I got my civ pro reading done, don't look at me like that! Plus, we're behind in Property already and it's just so. damn. boring to read) I was looking through the periodic pictures I take of myself with the webcam on my comp, and I gotta say, you can really see me slowly losing my mind, reaching the pinnacle Monday morning. I love it, but it's wonky. I'm saying that about a lot of pictures lately, they're odd (or some variation thereof), but I like it. or just in general I like them. I hope that says something that I'm finally liking myself for who I am. Maybe, just maybe, I'm finally over that whole debacle.

wow. I can't believe that it's been over a year since that...debacle. I guess since about last March my life has been going so fast I hadn't taken time to think about it. I really shouldn't take time to recall it at all, but for some reason it keeps popping up in my head. (additional note: I figured out why it creeped up in my memory, it had to do with NoPants night, and I'm doing things to move on. It's working, ps.) I guess I'm glad I've grown up since then, but man, he f*cked up my life hard. OK, minor detour over, on to better things.

Oh, and apparently I have some things to clarify, as people got confused a couple posts back. Monty, is my car. My computer's name is Roger. Yes, I name things, I won't go in to the other things named.

Sometimes I wish my friends from Iowa could be here and see what I see every day. I do hate being away, but there are some pretty cool sights. The subway ride across the Charles is a twice-daily occurrence, and no matter how cold it gets, it's always pretty. And we could go on ferry rides across the harbor to the Constitution, and do the Freedom Trail, and go to places I've wanted to go, but just don't want to go on my own. So, nudge nudge, if you cant to visit, you're welcome to.

Hey you! Yeah you! Do you remember that time, it might have been sophomore year, it might have been junior year, when it dumped that epic amount of snow and we and about half of RCA went out and played in the courtyard with the BWR boys until about 2 in the morning? With snow forts and snowball fights and snow angels and touch football. Yeah!? You know what? I miss that.

ok wow, really detoured on this one from where I started. meh, whatevs.

A day without pants

2009-01-11T13:50:00.002-05:00

So most possibly the oddest day in Boston thus far. Some probably poor life choices were made, but nothing bad happened, and several good life choices were made, which will hopefully equalize things in my mind in the morning.

So, to start. NoPants 2009 was Saturday, the one thing in Boston I've been looking forward to for months. Serious. I woke up realizing that I should have put as much thought into what I was going to wear on top as I had with what I was going to wear on the bottom. So I cheated, I wore underwear AND boxers, so sue me.
Anywho, got there, got put into smaller groups and assigned stops. The process went like this: We all got on a specific car on the way out of Alewife(the final stop outbound on the red line) going inbound. The stop before the stop you were assigned, as soon as the doors closed there, you took off your pants, all non-chalantly and such, and got off at your stop and waited for the next train. Then you rode the train to Park Street, got off, and got on the next train going back to Alewife.
My stop, Central, had about 6 people assigned from our group (there were about 8 such groups). We chatted each other up for awhile, then got down to business... our business socks, if you will.
It was hilarious to see the reactions from the pants-wearing crowd when they realized what was going on. They were asking questions or pointing or laughing or trying to not look. One lady I heard as I was getting off at Park Street said, "I must be going crazy!" Nope, we're just having a little fun.
Got back to Alewife, took many pictures, got one of me with a firefighter with no pants... yeah, a firefighter. There were people in all sorts of clothes, from t-shirts to business suits.
Headed to the bar where we were allowed to come, sans pants, and hang for awhile. Started talking with people, we got out on the dance floor and at some point I was slow dancing with this chick and there was a pantsless kickline and I had a horny pirate (a drink, come on people, heads out of the gutter...) and then came 6 o'clock. The dreaded time when we were to put our pants back on. But this one girl that was in the group I was talking with was like "Let's go back to my house and take our pants off." So I went. I was freaking out inside a little bit, I'm not gonna lie, when I realized I was sitting in a car of a person I didn't know, waiting for the other 3 people in that load to get back out from the liquor store.
But it ended up being pretty fun, I actually ended up being dubbed as one of the ballsier/braver people there for heading to Boston without a place to live. Yeah, never thought that day would come. Hmmmm. Yeah.
Played a bit of Balderdash, some cards, circle of death, bite-the-bag... They were pretty cool, here, let's pull some quotes out to show ya...
"Just suck really hard." In reference to bite-the-bag
"Goblin, goblin, cock, goblin." In reference to the movie Labyrinth and David Bowie's epic pants, because there was a poster on the wall in the kitchen.
"I'm legitimately piss on your face while you're sleeping." Yeah, don't remember the context. Not sure I want to.
"How many cows can fit in a light socket." The questions round of circle of death. I laughed so hard I cried.
I didn't end up drinking a ton because of the creepy other roommate that came back about half-way through and was hitting on all the girls hardcore. "Two chicks to a dude, it's perfect." "There needs to be more girls here that I can have sex with." "I'm gonna call you Star. There is a stripper from Romania named Star that I liked. She was wonderful." Yeah, the last one was said to me while we were in a room alone. I was real skeezed out. I just wanted to leave while saying, "Dude, for one, you have a girlfriend, and two... I don't, just, no!" It got to the point where I even refused to hug him as everyone was getting ready to leave. I needed to look out for myself, and by only having one beer after I got to the house, I was able to do that. Pretty proud of myself for that, I gotta say.
But I eventually got a ride to the station after exchanging numbers with quite a few people from there. It would be fun if we actually do end up hanging out again. Whether it will actually happen? I don't know. Things like that don't usually work out. I'm just saying.

But I'll end on a happy note. As I was walking back to the house, it was snowing gorgeous snow. I don't know how much we're supposed to get, and in general I hate New England snow, but this was too pretty to hate. It's the snow you're supposed to have someone to make out in with. Sad day.
Also: when I move back to Iowa, I want to have a traffic cone for my apartment. That is all.

It's official, I'm a play-ah (of the system, not of guys) (or people)

2009-01-09T11:44:00.004-05:00

On an unrelated note before I get started, kneesocks=love. Now, on to playing the system... sort of.

I don't even know I'm doing it sometimes, it just seems to work out. That, and it pays to plan ahead.

I knew I was gonna grab a cab from the hotel next to the school on the Friday spring break starts, just so I don't have to deal with lugging my suitcases back down to the subway. So I stopped and asked the doorman there how much it would be, but he ends up telling me that I could schedule a shuttle to the airport for about 10 bucks cheaper than a taxi. Score.

Then, I find out, by pure chance and luck, though I had hoped and wished, that I will be in Ames over Kaleidoquiz. I LIVE part of my life for Kaleidoquiz, and I told Lando that no matter what, I would be back in town for it this year, even if I were in Boston. I love how I actually get to follow through on that promise, though he probably won't remember me at all. Now, I just have to find an epic team to join. Helser? Unless I get a better offer, probably. (I'll whore myself out to the highest KQ bidder, I'm not ashamed. I'm an awesome googler, I have a car and keys to Friley, and I'm over 21, which turned out to be a valuable asset last year.)

Also, not exactly playing the system, and not exciting at all, except to me, is the fact that just by asking I got a bigger locker! Gasp, you mean I can actually fit all my books in there!? Brilliant. It didn't help that I am taking my monstrosity of a constitutional law book from Iowa State to store there too, but the books wouldn't fit anyway, I doubt I could even fit my head in the old one. Win.

Wow, I'm doing some much-needed cleaning of my room, and I gotta tell ya, it's like a trip down forgotten-memory lane. I found the beer from the Thursday of the last final, as well as a hard-as-a-rock roll and fortune cookie that apparently came with the chinese food that night. Yep, don't remember the chinese place. At all. Also, directions. Which is good, because we're apparently doing more of those parties and I could NOT tell you how to get there again, and I'm usually excellent with directions.

Zomgsh I can see my floor! This is going quite well. On to clearing off the level surfaces.

Other random notes:

Is it bad that I know I must allocate an hour to randomly surfing sites like FB, gmail, twitter, failblog, lolcats and punditkitchen before I can reasonably expect to do any work? I think it is.

Our contracts professor said we were all acting braindead after being on break for so long... so long!? It was only 17 days. I wish I went to Drake, they don't start til the 19th. Dammit. Next year, hopefully.
But she also went into the schpeel about how people were probably telling us we've changed, how our priorities have shifted, etc. I really wanted to shout out "The most important things to me over break were nerf gun wars, Sex in the City, late nights with friends and South Park. Does that mean I can't be a lawyer anymore?"

I love my snowboots

2009-01-07T19:20:00.010-05:00

What have I been up to?

a) Not much.
b) Realizing that this was pretty much... no, strike that, THE best New Years season ever. Thanks!
c) Wishing it wouldn't snow. In Iowa, snow makes me happy. Here, snow makes me miss home.
d) Getting so sick it hurt to swallow for the better part of a day. My gag reflex is getting quite the workout, but I'm slowly adding real food back into the diet. I'll keep down a couple handfuls of cereal a day so far. Funny how the last real meal was Burger King. Baby step, baby steps.
e) Turning down that date. Yeps, sorry Mandie, not doin' it. I hope you understand.
f) Not studying. I need to, but too tired to do much of anything right now. But, after cutting myself off from computer, I did get the readings done for class, which is more than I've done all week. Baby steps, baby steps.
g) Figuring out which brand of TUMS is best. Obviously they're all about the same strength so they do the same job on the crazy stuff I've been going through, but after trying the Target, Wal-Mart, and actual TUMS brand, I'm gonna have to go with Wal-Marts. Least chalky, and none of the flavors are horrid. Too bad I'm stuck with the other two, I finished the last WM ones Monday, and there isn't a Wal-Mart I can get to. Yay.
h) Organizing all my plane tickets I still have. Do you realize I've been on 12 plane rides in the past 3 1/2 months? That brings my total number of flights (that I'm old enough to remember) up to the 32-36 range. Impressive.
i) Counting down the days til spring break. Yes, I'm already counting down the days.
j) Gearing up for the not wearing pants thing on Saturday. Hell yeah!

Isn't it great when:

When you can realize once again that you are not alone? A good decompression session over lunchtime didn't exactly focus me, but made me realize other people are having a hard time making the transition back to classes as well. Being tired all the time isn't so odd. I thought I was just sinking but others are too.

You get an unexpected level-up? In essence that's what this was. We got our open memo back in Legal Research and Writing on Monday, and I was OK with my grade. Then I found out that this one girl, who I *really* don't like (not for any particular reason, she just rubs me the wrong way) and thought would kick our asses at everything, didn't even get a grade. She was told to do a re-write because it was so horrible, and I got a B. This is a good day.

p.s. Songs I should not listen to in public because I want to sing along:

Swear words: Blink 182
Everyone's a little bit racist: Avenue Q
You can be loud as the hell you want: Avenue Q

I fear for the wellbeing of little Stevie Williams

2009-01-04T14:29:00.003-05:00

I had forgotten:
Just how much I love driving, though I could have imagined.
Just how brilliantly my friends and I click. I love them and I can't imagine living without them.
How my body reacts when I don't get enough sleep. And maybe it had something to do with the crazy driving and delayed reaction to leaving Ames, but I, as I sit in the Moline, Illinois airport, feel like shit.
But let's catch up a little bit on what's been going on in my life for the past week. It's been a doozie.

Christmas was spent at home with the family. It would have been nicer if my brother hadn't tried to poke out one of my ribs. My mom had made me a t-shirt quilt of some of the shirts I'd picked out from my high school days. It's ginormous. Huge. Bigger than possibly a king size. It'll be wonderful when I finally have a bed big enough to use it on. It's funny how my comforters and quilts are anticipating the upgrade, but the bed hasn't made it there quite. I CAN'T WAIT.

Drove up to my grandparents in Laurens for that family's Christmas with my mom. On the Saturday with the ice. 5+ hours. Never again. I love Monty, but even he couldn't make the small hell I put up with better.
Got to hang out with my Grandma, Grandpa, uncle, the other lawyer aunt and uncle (who inevitably gave me advice I don't want to listen to) and my little cousin, who pretty much adores me. It's cute.
My aunt got a call that she had to go back to Phoenix on Monday. As I was headed out anyway, I drove her there, getting part of my driving bug out of my system.

To Ames!!! A smaller selection of summer friends than I thought would be there, but nonetheless, it turned out to be a pretty rocking (nearly literally?) week over New Years. Now I'm not saying we were super excited, we got the drinking bug out of our systems pretty early on, but just hanging out, being ABLE to be boring is all part of it. Sex in the City marathon, the movies, sledding, making suppers, the New Years Eve party, girls night... **awesome**

I got to see a lot of people I wanted to, though some of them not nearly as much as I would have liked (Miss Carrie Bradshaw, there is a finger pointing in your general direction), but I have to make the most of what I do get with them. (I hope that doesn't sound hypocritical). Everything that was planned to happen did, which is kind of amazing. I thought the sledding wouldn't happen for a bit, but of course, I even have battle scars from those runs down death hill.

Of course I didn't want to leave. Not at all. But that's not exactly a choice for me at the moment. But of course defying my parents is always a choice, so we ended up leaving Ames pretty late and running with the ice storm all the way home. Most of the way it wasn't too bad, but then along about Stanwood, I don't know whether it was ice or Monty or both, but I went about 20mph for awhile. Not fun. The fun part came in the one driveway where I got about halfway up, tried to stop, and slid back out into the street... sideways. And that's after sliding past the first time. hahahaha, I love driving. I drove in nearly everything except sunny weather this break. Ice, rain, fog, blowing snow, snow, partly cloudy. Let me tell you, the partly cloudy was pretty tough going for awhile! :-)

But after packing and being driven to the airport at 3 in the morning, the trip to Boston was pretty uneventful. I tried to sleep. It didn't work too well, so I'm in that kind of soul-deep cold that I get when I haven't slept enough. Which is reasonable, I haven't slept since I got up yesterday at 11am. Plus I have the slight flight hangover, where I kind of feel crappy after getting off the plane mixed in with the awful feeling of missing people in Iowa immensely. Haven't eaten since last night either, but I still feel like puking. Vundebar. We'll see how soon it passes this time. Usually the transition is about 2 weeks.

Blargh.

Next stop, spring break!!

It should feel more like Christmas

2008-12-24T23:32:00.005-05:00

It doesn't quite feel like Christmas yet. I guess the fact that I'll be going back to effing Boston in less than two weeks now is always in the back of my mind, and that's putting a damper on things. But I don't want it to. I want to be the crazy, fun chick that had no worries, no regrets from this summer. We'll see.

The trip home happened after a late Thursday night after my last law school exam. Horrid. Drunkenness, wonderful. But, you'll enjoy this list of things, maybe, maybe not.

Reasons contributing to my drunkenness
1. Sober since October.
2. Taking swigs of 99 Blackberries in between nearly every drink of beer for the first two.
3. Adding 99 Blackberries to every mixed drink I got thereafter.
4. 6 beers.
5. Jell-O shots. I don't know how many. I had forgotten about the Jell-O shots.

Reasons I know I was zonked.
1. I thought I knew which train to get on. Unfortunately, Adam had to come running after me to stop me going on the one going the opposite direction.
2. I called several people and spoke in an impeccable Australian accent. I do that when I get drunk and I'm in the right mood.
3. I don't remember showering, though there is no chance I didn't.

Thursday's drunkenness was well earned though. After the barrage of tests all of us that went out and to the parties afterwards were ready to get the memory of them gone.

But I'm finally home after quite a trip. I recounted the whole thing while I was waiting in Atlanta. Observe:

Yay I hate AirTran Airlines. You will see why. I don’t hate the pilots, but the people in charge are really running kind of a sham when you think about it. I have not heard a single flight that I could have gotten on that they were not asking for people to volunteer to give up their seats and take a later flight. So, in other words, even though they aren’t supposed to overbook these flights, they are doing it badly (up to 20 people in one instance) on every single flight.

So the story starts in Boston on the 19.

I get to the airport with plenty of time to try to get on an earlier flight to Atlanta. No such luck. So I’m stuck in the airport, watching the snow start to come down, wondering if my flight will even leave that night. Now, I had already planned on spending the night in an airport somewhere because I knew this storm was coming, but I thought that once I got out of Boston, I’d be ok. More on that later. So the people who were on my flight were watching the time of our flight slowly get delayed, first 15 minutes, then a half hour. The flight before ours was cancelled, and the one before that was already a detour from another airport that had already been snowed in. Basically, these people were coming from West Palm Beach, heading to somewhere in upstate New York. When they were nearly there, they got word that the airport was closed, so they rerouted to Logan, where they were stuck. AirTran wasn’t telling them ANYTHING. What finally happened was they were sent BACK to Palm Beach, where they would try again later.

So we were all on edge, will it go out, won’t it? Finally our plane gets there and we do get on. This is about 6:45 or so. The flight attendants knew we were already on edge, so they tried to make jokes, like when we pulled away from the gate, the lights went out, they told us that the reading lights were above, push them once to turn on the light, the second time would turn off the light, and if we pushed it a third time we would be ejected from the aircraft. Then we get told we would be de-iced and then we could go. The whole process would take about 45 minutes. OK. Fine. Then the fun starts.

The pilot told us that it was taking longer than usual to get the de-icer truck there. Then even longer. Then “I don’t even know how to say this.” Aw crap. They had sent the truck, but no-one to de-ice.

So, let me get this straight. You sent the truck, but not the guy who actually knows how to work the sprayer. No, no, I swear, it makes complete sense to me.

So we get de-iced. Eventually. Then, “I really don’t know what to tell you at this point, folks,” we get told the runways are closed, they would have to plow them and that we would have to get de-iced. Again.

Luckily we had started a kind of camaraderie you only find in situations like this, there were quite a few college kids going out that night. The blonde boy across the aisle stole my heart when he started singing “Always look on the bright side of life,” from Monty Python. All the people around us were pretty cool. And the pilots realized we’re getting antsy so they invite us up to the cockpit to show us what’s going on. It was pretty cool.

So if you can believe it, we did get de-iced again, and we did make it off the ground. Once we were reliably in the air, the entire cabin started clapping and cheering. Amazing. But once we landed in Atlanta at 1:30 am, we had been on that plane for over 6 and a half hours for what was supposed to be a 2 and a half hour flight.

I got a scandalous text and drunken call from this one guy, long story, at 2:30, then actually got to sleep. I’m one that usually CANNOT sleep anywhere other than my own bed, so the fact that I slept close to 6 hours while people filled in the chairs all around me is quite impressive.

Tried to get on the first flight to Moline, but of course they had overbooked that one, so no luck, but I did have a confirmed seat on the second one out at about 3:30. I’m not giving that seat up for any amount of money. I am never flying AirTran again. I should have never cheated on Northwest

Also, realizing I hadn't deleted my googlespam for awhile. I had no idea there was such a pressing need for me to "perform" on Christmas Eve or to make my penis stronger or to show my sweetheart how much I love 'heer.' This is just disturbing. It should not be legal to tout your product as being used by Santa Clause to f*** housewives and their daughters. Although I'm slightly amused, as always. Goodbye spam. At least I don't have to get through the gmail goggles to get rid of them.

Merry Christmas!!!

There is life outside your apartment

2008-12-17T18:56:00.006-05:00

Besides law school, that is. Yay!
Have any of you ever heard of Improv Everywhere? It's a group based in New York that does random things in public places, and I "joined" the Boston spin-off. Sunday was the first event. It was wonderful, but, I'm not going to tell you about it here. I'm going to wait to tell you about it when I actually talk to you (those of you that I will eventually actually talk to or care enough to ask). Because right now I either need to just enjoy the feeling it finally gave me (joy, humor, comraderie) and keep it to myself, or talk with people (yay social interaction). So now it's in your hands.
But, because of this experience, I am now entrusting all of my major life decisions to K. She is the one who told me I *must* go. And it was wonderful. So, if you want something, you must go through her first.

But law school. Yeah. I think a girl from my class put it best when she saw me as she was getting off the train and said, "Don't you just hate your life right now?" Yeah.

Teehee. I just put my new books for next semester and realized I now have the "Model Penal Code." Dirty. Too many jokes to even know where to begin. And yes, for being a law student my mind is still that immature.

Other than that, not a lot is going on. I'm having a very hard time focusing on anything right now, kind of a rough week, but it is for everybody because it's finals. I fly out on Friday, but I have a very distinct feeling that I may be spending the night in Atlanta because of the ice Iowa is supposed to get. Tomorrow I break my sobriety, it'll be amazing.

< 4 days till AMES!!!

Body. Still. Dealing. With. The. Trauma.

2008-12-12T19:46:00.006-05:00

Breathe in, breathe out. *Twitch.* Breathe in, breathe out. *Twitch*twitch.*

Civil Procedure was supposed to be the hardest, it was supposed to be the most traumatic. I have never . I. Can't even put a full sentence together to describe the way I feel right now. Torts. There was something about break-dancing Elmo and Sara Bareilles "Love Song" started randomly playing on an iPod somewhere in the middle... I barely finished, I could have written for another two hours and barely covered everything, and this was a three-hour exam to begin with. This was the first time in my entire life that I felt like I needed to listen to death metal to calm down. Get that? To CALM DOWN. I only had one song that fit the bill, and I had that on repeat until I was able to chill out enough to put on Saint Radar. I could feel my chest shaking, but I felt like I needed to DO something, I just didn't know what. Turned out even doing a little thing was a bad idea. I grabbed the stairs instead of the escalator. Turns out doing that with legs still so shaky was a bad life choice. I was so shaken that, even though I'm not scared of dogs, on the walk home, a little bitty dog barking next to me made my jump like 3 feet in the air and made the hair on my head stand straight up. *twitch* Blargh!! There is no way to describe what just happened. I can only hope I showed I know enough to pass. Ugh. My brain (and soul) hurt.

(Moving on to things I got down the other day.)

I should have learned my lesson. I should have said no. I should have known better. I should have remembered how they make me feel.

So have I caught your attention yet? Let me explain:

I believe: I should not browse bumper stickers while I'm in a sad state and missing Iowa. "This will only end in tears." Yeah, that's all.

I believe: That police should be able to write citations for massive public displays of douchebaggery. No sir, pissing off the oncoming drivers by crossing when you know the light will change soon is not right, however, asshole driver, neither is laying on your horn for more than 5 seconds. In my world anyone who honked a horn more than the one tap would be liable for a $75.00 fine. Oh, and the jackasses that honk as soon as the light turns would pay $200 per offense. You're five cars back, let's not try to get the guy in the front hit by a bus.

I believe: Finals have turned me into a shallow shell of what I normally am. I just burst into tears in the middle of a study-break game because I ended up yelling "That was not a bargained-for-exchange, dumbass!!" at the game. Just thinking about it makes me tear up again. I should not find that as sad/hilarious as I actually do.

I believe: Again, stress is not at the front of my head, but apparently it is in my subconscious. I have been having the most f'd up dreams. I can't remember them now, but dreaming in that detail for four nights in a row is unusual, I'm pretty sure. Oh, and an interesting note: I dream in color.

I believe: That the moment I take that first swig of the 99 Blackberries will be one of the most joyous occasions in my entire life.

"Book I got drunk out." LOL I still remember this text, but apparently, it's more common than I thought. A'la the BBC, 'book' may be recognized as 'cool.' Not in my book, but it was good for a laugh. Or two. Or ten.

No quotes from law school this day, seeing as I haven't set foot in there for quite some time, but I never cease to have sufficient sources for quotes. I'm sorry if they don't entertain you or move you as much as they do me, but this is my thing. You wanna see your favorite quotes? Make your own board. Good, now that we have that cleared up...

"It is my belief that every girl has a base-level of crazy. There are other factors to consider, like how smart she is, her sense of humor, whether you can actually stand to be around her, and looks. And usually if a girl seems to have it all together, there's usually one of those things wrong with her. If not, there's some sort of hidden crazy. Which leads me to believe you've got a club foot or something."
"I assure, I do not have a club foot. However I may have more crazy, I've got this paranoia right now.... *I go into the explanation*"
"You couldn't have made it easy, could you? Nothing like 'I'm afraid the purple lobsters from the Middle East are going to eat me.' No, that is a completely legitimate paranoia, it even makes sense to me, you need to confront this dude. So damn, there is *nothing* wrong with you. Why must you be the perfect girl?" ('Tis a true shame I stopped liking this guy long ago.)

"We enter the world alone, we leave it alone, and everything that happens in between we owe it to ourselves to find a little company. We need help, we need support. Otherwise we're in it by ourselves. Strangers. Cut off from each other and we forget just how connected we all are. So instead, we choose love, we choose life, and for a moment we feel just a little bit less alone."

Two in one day? And law school substance too? Lucky you!

2008-12-09T19:02:00.003-05:00

So the topic for this one is *gasp* actually law school again. The whole reason I started this thing way back in, well, August, but let's not go into that.

Today, Tuesday, December 9th, 2008, was my first law school final. You've heard about the lead-up to it, how I'm not that nervous, and luckily that continued on. Whatever happens, happens, right? Just be as prepared as you can reasonably be, and just rock it. And besides, it's Civil Procedure, what most of us consider to be the worst subject, so we're happy to get it over with.

Hang out with some kids from class beforehand across the street, get into a dirty conversation about Cheetos and Cheez-its (ask if you... no, on second thought, don't ask), and try to convince this one girl it is time to stop studying. Get into the school, figure out which room we're supposed to be in, and surprise of all surprises(!) our professor was actually our proctor! Good thing, I promise. He's a fun guy, and as Ed put it, he could be like our own little mnemonic device, just look at him and try to remember the pain inflicted as he was teaching us this stuff.

Hands out the test, and guess what? Due to the limited number of spaces for the first name, I'm back to taking tests as "Christ" Ketelsen. I thought they fixed that on bubble sheets. I can deal with Christin, but geez, really? I feel like I'm back in elementary school taking ITBS again.

Explain the rules of conduct... "It's my reading of the bathroom rule that as there's one guys bathroom and one girls room, that one of each can be out of the room at a time, we just don't want any conferences in the bathrooms." (I really don't think I'd have a problem going into a guys room though. It wouldn't stop me. Not that I'd seriously consider cheating, I'm just saying...)
And begin... "Oh, by the way, I do carry a gun." (seriously, that's the last thing he said before we could open the exam)
It was so wierd. When we started, it was completely light out, nice day. As the test wore on, it was interesting, if not exactly helpful, to notice that the sun was fast sinking and by the time we walked out it was night. Full on night.
And while I felt amused and fairly relaxed during the test, apparently my body still knows stress is present. Hands shaking a bit, reminding myself to "breathe, just breathe," and with like 2 minutes left that the professor announced, someone sneezed, and I physically jumped in my seat. How fried was I?

Well, it's over. And I could have been completely and utterly justified in breaking my sobriety afterwards. But no, I'm keeping my word and being a good girl. I felt good going through the test, it was the most exhilarating brainrape, mindfuck, what have you ever, but I really have no idea how it went. I'm glad we don't get our grades back until after break. That way I can be schwasty all during break, then fly back and THEN find out there was no point in coming back. Meh. Not really. The only one that really matters is Torts. Friday.

Arrivederci.
10 days till Iowa
13 days till Ames!!!

It's hard to explain to a non-believer

2008-12-08T14:58:00.011-05:00

If you don't see the simple, clean, soul-clearing beauty of winter and snow, it's a lost cause trying to explain it. I've only met a few other people who appreciate winter and the snow as much as I do. I'm not saying I like extreme cold every single day, I'm as happy as the next person to curl up on the couch with a hot mug of cider. I'm just saying that as soon as I pull into the drive at home, even though it'll bee midnight (or later) I'm gonna throw myself in the first snowdrift I see.

I'm going to live in my Carhartt wool cap. aka: the only thing from the lost summer that was even remotely good or of any value.

It's kind of entertaining looking at facebook statuses of the people from law school as finals come 'round. Part of it makes me say "yeah, I know what you mean," part of makes me feel better, like "yay, I'm not the only one procrastinating like my life depends on it," and the rest, well, just makes me sad that I know what they're talking about.
Category 1's: "taking it one day at a time til the 18th... then all sobriety ends." "I just want to take this final already..." "brain can't take anymore!!!!!!!!!!"
Category 2's: "definitely going to start outlining civ pro today, no more procrastinating." "
Category 3's: (ask if you really want to know, it's sad) "might die from the exertion."

And while I'm still not feeling the complete stress of others, I'm pretty sure my body knows I'm supposed to be. I can't sit still, I can't pay attention, my stomach still lives on TUMS, and my mind is always swimming, I'm sure I couldn't get to sleep without my happy little friends. Oh, and my roommates must think I'm crazy, going around muttering things like "personal jurisdiction, 1404, 1406, venue, freaking International Shoe..." Oh great, now you guys think I'm crazy too. Brilliant.

O_o
"Because... I love you."
"Well that's too bad."
~Gossip Girl
:'(
Why do I suddenly feel more like Blair than Serena?

I think I'm going to start a new segment in these. The "Current Procrastination Obsession." Last time it was the Cake Wrecks blog. This week...

OMG I am in LOVE with the angry video game nerd. I don't even know video games much (none of the guys really take the time to teach me *gasp, a girl* to play) and this guy is hilarious. I should REALLY be studying, but watching him rant in various and obscene language about different gaming systems and games while drinking beer is well.... a much better activity. Some of the sequences get a little cheesy, and at times it sounds like the stuff coming out his mouth he's just saying for the shock factor, but nonetheless, even factoring in the adoration I have for nerds in general, this one takes the cake.

Look, he even has a theme song! -->

"He's gonna take you back to the past to play the shitty games that suck ass. He'd rather have a buffalo take a diarrhea dump in his ear; he'd rather eat the rotten asshole of a road kill skunk and down it with beer. He's the angriest gamer you've ever heard, he's the angry Nintendo nerd."
*Note: I only watched the ones that were about 8 minutes or longer, so no guarantees on the shorter ones.
Oh man, I'm so going to hell for enjoying this episode more than any other.

FML: Or as law school likes to call it, Finals

2008-12-06T19:22:00.015-05:00

I am currently soliciting donations for my apparent study period-induced hibernation food groups: Water, ramen, clementines and cookies. Oh, and candy canes, of course. How can an "Elf" lover forget her candy canes?

I want Scott Steffens. Right. Now. I will fly him out personally if he'll just do that thing he does. I'm spending more time on the floor than I'd like because of him. (Completely non-dirty, even though it completely sounds like a "that's what she said" moment. I apologize.)

Impressively I got like 5 hours of concentrated studying done on Saturday before my self-induced ADD kicked in (and people started messaging me). Now I just have to go over the notecards I made. You know how when we were younger the flashcards we made had like one word on one side and a short sentence on the other? Yeah, no longer. One side still has the basic one word, the other side? **TEXT** full. It sucks. But it's working.

Sometimes you run across things in taking things from class notes that make you wonder if the professor was on crack while he was writing it. I have no idea what the following text is supposed to say, and I can even see the rest of the context it was in. Sigh...

Below is a picture of my "motivational wall." I know it's sappy, and you're supposed to make your own luck and motivation blahblahblah, but sometimes we all can use a little reminder. Besides, most of these aren't the unconditional motivations, like "you can do it!" or shit like that. They recognize that we all have inner battles and all of us have our bad days, but give it time and good things will happen, and you can't get through something if you give up. I'm picky, and these made the cut. So be it. (for those of you seeing this in the facebook context, if you go to the actual blogspot site and click on the picture, it gets bigger and you can read the actual words)

On a slightly law-school-related note, I'm still deciding whether to use purposeful availment principles in determining if I should kick someones ass. There's definitely availment, whether it was purposeful or vindictive enough to warrant the ass-kicking I want to give is debatable, however.

It FINALLY snowed!!! But I'm not sure how happy I am about it. It's just another one of those things. I can start to like something, (in this case, Boston) but I'll still despise it because it's keeping me away from something else (Iowa). But it was snowing big flakes, it was pretty, I even went out in my PJ's (who am I kidding, I live in my PJ's on the weekend, no joke) and stood on the deck watching. And to make the morning (it's still morning if you wake up before noon, right?) I got my winter Dutch Letter care package from Grandma. This could be bad.... ;-)

Best. Procrastination. Website. This. Week. I could not stop laughing at the Naked Mohawk-Baby Carrot Jockeys to save my life. It's been incorporated into my desktop background, so even in the heat of studying, I'll have something to laugh at. http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

Let's start the final countdown, shall we!?
12 days till my inevitable hangover/I fly HOME!!!
15 days till Ames!!! OMG so close!!!!

Apparently this week is the week for confessions

2008-12-03T13:21:00.010-05:00

The property professor felt the need to cross himself before he started class. Brilliant.

It seems as though I'm not the only one who thinks law school has made us a recluse. One of the main topics at lunch today was that we have no life (really) outside of school. We wake up, go to school, go back to the house, shower (most days), sleep, wash, rinse, repeat. The lunch we did was admittedly likely the most social event of our respective weeks. None of us would admit it if the others weren't as well, but we're pretty lonely here. Studying isn't exactly a social activity, and it's so hard to meet up with people even after about 6 at night because we want to make sure we sleep and have travel time. So here it is: as glamorous as law school may sound, it's lonely. Don't know what I'd do without my friends and Iowa to look forward to.

"I want to be Bobrowski. I want to be so good at my job that whatever I do they won't fire me." ~Ed
"I heard he married one of his students."~S
"Yeah, I heard that too!"~C
"How does that even happen?"~S
"**You can come see me at *private* office hours**... If he weren't so old now I could totally see it." ~C
"I can see it, I suppose, although he needs to do something about those eyebrows."~S
"**No, ya see, they tickle!**"~Ed
"Oh my gosh, so, so dirty."~C (and yes, the comment was intended to be fully as dirty as the entire table took it to be)

The lunch (from which the above quote came from and which was basically a law school bitch rant, so we brought up every other thing wrong with school) also gave completely new meaning to the bumper sticker that says, "If you don't have anything nice to say, come sit in the corner and talk shit about other people with me." So much trash talking going on, good to know we can still act like high-schoolers. Still haven't surpassed the level of drama I experienced earlier this year, but it was fun to talk about bad outfits and professors relationships instead of *twitch* personal jurisdiction *shudder*.

On a completely unrelated note, I was called a brunette (with a little bit of red-head thrown in) for the first time in my life, and this was completely un-prompted. I think it makes me happy. While everyone still seems to be going lighter, I'll go against the crowd (once again). Wow I'm stubborn and obstinate. But you know this. Hopefully you love (or have accepted) this or else why are you still reading?

So Victoria's Secret Fashion Show? So much fun, but so late at night. If only I could actually afford to shop there.

I find it sad that I'm using purposeful availment in determining whether to kick someones ass right now. I did not need THAT. Not now. Not ever. Yay, cryptic girl strikes again!!

I've realized that I should probably factor in my inevitable hangover into my packing expectations for the Friday after finals, huh?

"Let me tell you something I've learned... every day you work for somebody else is a day you work for somebody else."~Bobrowski (wow, do I detect a theme to this post?)

"The mentoring you get in a law firm, particularly a small firm is that the senior partner had a stack of papers on the corner of the desk and he knows it's gonna bite him in the ass one day and one day it falls over and he goes 'damn, I've gotta hire somebody.' So he hires you and you take the stack of papers and you go 'What the hell is this?' Hello mentoring." ~Bobrowski

"We had no idea what was going on, there were skateboarders coming down a hill and a car accident and a baby... I didn't even want to get that exam back, I felt so violated." Random 2L

""Why are guys such idiots?"
"If I could answer that I would NOT be in law school right now. It's either because 1) they think we're done talking and we're not, 2) they think we understand and we DON'T have a clue in the world what they're trying to say or 3) their head is in their pants.""

Wow this is getting long... but there are even more stories!!

In Civil Procedure our professor asked us to submit questions, and said that we could submit them anonymously if we wanted. Well, he put a note up on the Elmo, one that resembled an old-fashioned ransom note, with the letters cut out of a magazine, ya know. And he said, "This was a bad attempt at an anonymous letter. As much as I appreciate the attempt at anonymity, the person that wrote this note handed it to me. But I will treasure it forever."

"One of my favorite quotes is from A League of their own. You know how they say 'There is no crying in baseball?' There is no crying in Civil Procedure."

"You need injury, duty, breach, and causation comes in two different flavors."

Giving in would be weakness, right?

2008-12-01T23:27:00.009-05:00

But I want booze!!!!!!!!!!!! That is all.

Oooooooo. I finally got a "good point."(!!!) Now it wasn't for anything in class, unfortunately, but I went up to ask a question on a concept our Civ Pro professor brought up in class. (Certification, where a court can ask another court what its ruling would be on the case. I thought that it would violate the case and controversy provision in the Constitution, and he agreed and seemed impressed and gave me a "good point.") That's the Holy Grail for law school students. Not a fail.

Learning I cannot in all seriousness imitate the Boston accent. Which is a good thing, but it's so bad when I try. I'll tell ya what I think it sounds like, just ask.

Sigh. I feel like I'm far too relaxed going into the last week of classes and finals. And whether this is good or bad, I have no idea. Yes, I feel the stress and I know others are mega-stressed and going at it full-bore, I have just reached the point where I find amusement in everything, where I just have to laugh at all the shit going down around me. Or maybe it's just that I'm finding it really, really, really hard to care about anything right now.

I am a complete hypocrite, and I am truly sorry for that. However, that fact is not likely to change soon.

My MP3 is still telling me things. At least this time the song makes complete sense. Meh. (and no, it's not "it sucks to be me." finally...)

Wow, ummmm when the music stopped for a minute I could hear Pedro in the other room singing. He, aside from the American Idol reject, may the most tone-deaf person in the world. Ouch, is painful.

GRRRRRR!!! I did NOT need all this stuff coming up the week before finals. And no, I can't tell you what it is. N-, no-, no, noooo I don't care who you are, I can't tell you. And that sucks. Maybe it'll all come out in the wash and then I can tell you, but woot for other people's dealings being able to drive me up a wall.

No quotes. Deal.

Because ordinary procrastination just isn't enough

2008-11-28T14:44:00.011-05:00

How did I get here? Boredom + empty house and interesting things happen. Last night was weirder, (just ask) but still... where did it start? Facebook (what is a segfault, exactly? hmmm, let's Wikipedia) --> Segmentation fault --> slashdot --> troll(internet) --> Munchkins (card game) --> James Bond --> Commodore 64 --> (side tangent onto 6 degrees of separation of Wikipedia) emulators --> Linux --> GNU (?WTF) --> abort Wikipedia in hopes of being productive

The gimp is (mostly) gone!!! The only time it really hurts now is when I actually stub it. It hurts a little more severely than a normal stub, but otherwise, it's gone!!!

So you have to tell me, what is the oddest combination of clothing you have ever worn? I thought I hit my limit at VEISHEA 2008, with 7 layers of clothes on. But no. Law school "off-days" has turned my default comfy outfit into something cute, but odd, and I'll only tell mine if you tell me yours. What, this requires interaction? Blasphemy!

Eating nothing but cookie dough, drinking nothing but water. Now if only I allowed myself to drink liquor Saturday would have been the perfect day. But I do believe the gingerbread cookies were better off as cookie dough than as cookies.

I fail as a college student. I had to look up what "cannabis" is. Ooops. Is pot.

So during break I got a lot of TV watching in (luckily that watching was accompanied with lots of outlining as well). But I felt compelled to commemorate some of the better shows I watched. Well, the funnier ones I watched. I like House and CSI, but you can't exactly pull non-context-affiliated quotes from those. So here goes

"Popeye is being raped by Christmas critters!" (Yes, I actually watched South Park's Imaginationland. I kind of liked it.)

"Adolf Hitler was rejected when he applied to art school... one thing led to another and the United States dropped two atomic bombs on the sovereign nation of Japan!?" (Random guy on Comedy Central. Not very good, but this part was funny to me)

"Killing folks is easy. Being politically correct is a pain in the ass."

"Jingle bombs, jingle bombs, where are all the virgins that Bin Laden promised me? Don't laugh at me because I'm dead or I kill you!"

"What is wrong with you?"
"NyQuill and Redbull."
(<3 Jeff Dunham)

Now remember, oddest combination of clothing, please!

I in fact did not just get out of the shower

2008-11-25T10:43:00.015-05:00

Walking to school on Tuesday felt like I was back on the Raging River at Adventureland. It was raining. Cars splashing water all over. While walking under a make-shift walkway, one of the canvases gave way and soaked the left half of me. Kind of like the spontaneous waterfalls, no? Meh.

And to find out, when I got there, that our first class was canceled anyway. So that means, for the trouble of getting up and trekking to school for two days, I get in ONE class. One miserable class. If this were undergrad, the classroom would have been empty from people saying "screw you guys, I'm going home." No. J and I actually hoped it would be rather empty, but alas, people actually showed up. Weird freaks.

I have a slightly odd mystery to solve. As I was doing my laundry, I went through the pockets in my jeans. Found a bit of cash, some change, my C.O. Bigelow lip gloss, my cherry chapstick (stfu, yes, I use it), and...... a tube of Strawberry chapstick. I've never used strawberry, as far as I know I've had absolute control over these jeans, I don't know where it came from. I am confused.

Oh, here's a picture of what apparently happened that caused the school to be shut down on Monday:

It was nice though, Monday and Tuesday we didn't have to worry about getting hit by cars going to Starbucks (apple cider and strawberries and cream frappachino, I still don't drink coffee) because the street was closed. I looked out the window on Tuesday and it looked odd with cars on it.

OH man, I just realize what causes the awful feeling in my stomach which causes me to want to pop TUMS over and over. Well, at least this last bout was brought on by listening to a certain song. Crap. I like that band, and I am in love with that song, it would suck if I could never listen to it without breaking a little. Yep, music is the strongest sense tied to my memory. And I still would like to know what sort of algorithm my MP3 uses to determine which song to play next. It seems to repeat songs alot. Or maybe I skip a lot. Hmmm. But it still plays "It sucks to be me" and "The end of all things" every single day. I'm starting to notice "If she knew what she wanted" comes on an awful lot too. I hope it's not hardwired to me actually.

Some days I still have no idea what I'm typing into my computer from my notes. It makes no sense. Like today. "Federal courts have to follow both substantive law (state) = cause of action. Also includes state statute, local and precedent unless federal law provides otherwise." What the hell does that mean?

Ooooooo.... now all I have to do is "sew 'em so I don't show 'em!"

"I'm not having unprotected sex, I made that up." ~I walked in on the wrong end of that conversation!

"You know her, legally brunette, the one that sits right up front and sucks up to Meltzer so hard he might have an orgasm."

1)Why I never call and 2)finally, a good day

2008-11-23T18:55:00.015-05:00

So to anyone that may wonder why I never call anymore... I just decided around about the 10th call I made where the person was like "I can't really talk right now," that I have a really bad sense of timing and that if people want to talk to me they should either call me themselves or let me know when to call them. It's worked... for the most part. ktnxbye

I HATE HATE HATE the anonymity the city brings. I experienced it in full force as I was coming back to the house after shopping on Saturday. It sucks. It sucks monkey balls.

Oh man. I've decided what I want for Christmas, and it's one of the geekiest things I could've possibly come up with. It doesn't help that it's on thinkgeek.com at all. But it's so me. Wonder how my family will feel about me asking for a flying alarm clock.... hmmmm.

GAH!! There's really no way to properly spell out the continuous stream of expletives going through my head. I REALLY didn't want to get out of bed this morning (it's a Monday, who does?). But it turns out I had no real reason to. School is canceled. Not just our torts class. Every single class today. They're doing work on the street outside and apparently there was something about an exploding manhole, and yeah. I got up for *nothing*. I even had to run back 3 blocks to get my keys (luckily I was able to break in the back door (good, bad? Probably bad) to get them so I didn't wake up my roommates, but still. At least I was able to get into the Harvard library no problem, so I'm cooped up there for several hours. Or more.

On a slightly related note, is Facebook now patrolling the status updates or something? 1) They won't let me put bad words up there anymore. 2) I've had more than one disappear. Not completely, they're still in my history, but not in my active update. The first one **really** wasn't all that bad at all, just complaining about my craziness on Thursday. Hmmm. I suppose I'll find out if I get a warning from the managers.

"Having crazy visions of cheeseburgers. Please spare some change to make the ham stop dancing." ~On the sign of one of the hobos in Harvard Square. He got my laughter, he can have Obama's change.

The situation: Mock torts exam review. Going over an essay question in which the wife of the guy injured suffered mental anxiety and would throw up due to the stress caused to her as a result of his injury. (Loss of consortium, for you non-legal people, is the loss of intimacy in a relationship and is something you can recover damages for.)
The quotes:
C: "What about loss of consortium?"
S: "Was there any evidence they lacked consorting?"
C: "Well she's throwing up..."
S: [walks over to the mike and speaks directly into it.] "Maybe Lenny's into that."
Oh... dear...

"There comes a time you decide,
What from your life will be real.
What scars you will keep alive,
What you are willing to heal."

Damn, this sobriety thing is more hassle than it's worth. But only 24 days till I can drink to my hearts (and livers) desire.

Let's start this countdown again. 25 days till Iowa. 27 days till Ames!

Summer made me violent, law school made me angry

2008-11-21T10:47:00.000-05:00

"There is the case of a circus that failed to ah, properly control their elephants, and one 'relieved' itself on a person in the front row. I'm not sure there was impact but there certainly was distress."
~"That *would* be the greatest show on earth."

Is it bad that I'm happy when someone else screws up when being called on in class while I'm sitting there getting the answers right in my head?

I'm pretty sure most of my stress in life and in general can be attributed ultimately to public transportation.

The end of all things, hope fails, a storm is coming, it sucks to be me.... Now I'm sure my MP3 has a brain... and it's mocking me quite harshly. EVERY SINGLE DAY "It sucks to be me," from Avenue Q comes on. I'm not even joking. ***EVERY DAY***

I was actually looking forward to today, as crazy as that sounds, especially considering the fact our class had to be at the school at 9:30 for the mock torts exam. I was even going in cold, having not studied for it a teeny weensy bit except for keeping up on the notes throughout the semester. But, after the test, I was going to go shopping. Target! Old Navy! Victoria Secret! American Eagle (boxers! more of them!)! Bath and Body Works! Aerie! (I really don't dress like a prep, no matter what my store excitements are.)

Boys, if you're actually reading this, you can skip to the end of the starred (***) section. I'm sure you don't really want to hear about my shopping. See, I'm trying to help you.

*******************************
Awesome shopping day. Very cold, but toward the end the wind went down. Target first. No idea they had such CUTE lingerie. lol, I hate to say it but I even got stuff guys would like... now if guys will actually see it is another question in and of itself. And stuff for Ames and sleepovers. Fun!

Then to Cambridgeside Mall, which is so gorgeous, it's all decorated for Christmas already. If it weren't so busy I'd so go there to study. But there for very specific things. Soap, for Christmas presents for my mom, I think I finally found one she'll like.
Payless, for boots. White. That may have been a bad idea, but they'll at least be warm. And they'll be wonderful for when I go back to Iowa and (hopefully) go sledding. Woohoo!
And finally, AE, for boxers. Yes, more boxers. I love them. I forget if the ones I got glow in the dark or not (but that was an option!), but they're way cute.
Also a flask. It will have a name. Something with a B, because today was a "b" kind of day. Bras, boots, boxers... Bart... or Brian... I'll take votes.

********************************

Ok, boys, to recap. I got a flask. It will have a name. I haven't decided what yet though. Now I just need 151 or some vodka.

Now, the reason for this retail therapy was the mock exam this morning. EFF, who makes law students get up early on a Saturday? Apparently the twisted minds at the school. We're law students, we have nothing better to do, right. Oh, except catch up on the sleep we lose to law school during the rest of the week.

But I was able to get up without a problem, actually. Walk through the wind that made me go something along the lines of "What hell kind of shit is this fucking bitch wind!?" I like the cold. Wind, not so much. Then arrive at the school, go up the elevator... and the doors open to a sea of people. Once you get off the elevator and watch the faces of people facing the same situation, it's funny. One load of people even had the doors open, saw the mass, said essentially "screw it," and went back down in the same elevator!

But the test itself... not bad at all. I felt really good after it, and after going over the multiple choice answers, doing well on those, and reading over the model exam answer, I'm pretty sure I would have kicked its ass had it been a real test. Which is kind of what I needed, for certain. I don't want to get cocky, but after that I feel like I'm preparing adequately, which is what I was worried about. And I'm still not stressed or nervous. So this was good reassurance, what I went into Schulze for and he kind of looked at me like I was crazy and I'm sure I was because I wanted to cry in the middle of that meeting. Not a good day. Today was a good day.

Also, apparently law school people, including girls, can eat. Either that or the test just took a lot out of us. Two other girls and I went to lunch between the exam and the review of the exam at California pizza kitchen (followed close behind by about half of the rest of the class. Glad we got in early). We got two pizzas (for those of you that don't know, it's really fresh, stone-baked pizza, and one pizza is probably a twelve inch or so, so we got two to split between three of us) and we finished everything. It's really good pizza though, hawaiian with fresh pineapple and pesto and fresh cheese. mmmmm.

omgsh there were some awesome quotes from Schulze today. Unfortunately they're written on paper which currently sits in my locker at school. Not going back this weekend. Guess you'll have to way. oh darn

btw: I continue to post on my other blog over at xanga, but it's only going to be the time wasting questionaires I love so much. But they're not something I want directly on FB. Anything of what I consider substance will be here.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must go enjoy my boxers and other goodies. sooooooo tired.

Start the final countdown in 3.2.1

2008-11-19T12:50:00.000-05:00

"Law school is supposed to be so measured, so calculated. In torts battery equals A plus B plus C, assault equals 1 plus 2 plus 3 plus 4 plus 5. And here I am liberating you and saying, 'Imagine one situation out there where a guy marries a 14-year-old.' "

Got your attention? Good, I thought so.

I've decided to limit myself to publishing these every other day. As much as I want to fill you in on my daily life, I really shouldn't.

I'm still such little kid. L convinced me to go get ice-cream yesterday, and what did I get? Dark chocolate mint... with gummy bears. Similar combination to what I got the night of that awkward dressy night this summer. But still so good.

Oh thank goodness! I spilled half a glass of water on my computer Wednesday morning, just as I was ready to head out the door! After immediately dumping all the water I could off and blowing the rest off, I did end up taking it to school ( I still need it, all my notes and outlines are on it!). Luckily, it worked. I think he has a layer of plastic between the keyboard and the actual computer, but omg, I would have DIED if it crashed.

In talking to a friend going to law school out in California, I realized something I maybe hadn't before. I'm not sure that law school hasn't changed me. I'm sure it has. Not for the worse, hopefully, ie: I know where I *want* to go now, not just where I think I *should* go because it would make me look impressive. But I think the major difference is that no matter how unhappy being away from my friends makes me, I'm able to put all that aside and when I don't have to focus on law school, I, well, don't. I don't let it get in the way of keeping in touch, in the way of having fun. That's a big difference between me and the crazy law people. Maybe I should be more worried, and it does concern me that I'm not, but ya know, I'm just doing me.

So either my hair is changing with the seasons and long ago dye job, or my aunt and cousin just weren't paying attention to me when they saw me in June (which is entirely plausible, that side of the family we don't really talk about much. And they're the more normal of the bunch. The most normal is the other aunt and her new third husband, they're really nice, Bob's a good guy. On the other hand, on the immediate familial linkage is the 2nd cousin who is a month **younger** than I am and has like a six year old herself. Meaning she had the kid when we were **17**!! No way man. I'm still a kid at heart myself, I can't imagine having one. haha, that reminds me of the talk Leana and I had about our "hypothetical, non-existant kids that we don't want" being able to make us martinis by the time they're five. We've got aways to go.) Wow, that wasn't a *complete* side tangent at *all.* But when I walked in to see them the night I got back to Iowa they freaked out about my hair, asking if it was new, they liked it, all that. I though they were talking about the fact that I had made it kinky and messy for the flight, so it looked like it was supposed to be messy, instead of just being so. No, they were talking about the color. The color I did WAY back in September. I like it too, but good grief. Whatevs.

And I'm remembering what I Lurve about winter, and no, it's not just the cold. Well, it might have something to do with that. But whatever it is, Winter looks good on me. The sun, the snow, the cold, all combine with the rosy cheeks and wind-swept hair and the peacoat... <3>

"It should be pretty easy to figure out what's on the multiple choice. It's everything we went over in the 'O to A if it rains on a Tuesday..."

"I am the only guy over here. I am all alone. " ~Ed
"You like it." ~3 of the 5 girls talking around him.
"I liked it until we got to the vajayjay stretching nuva-ring." teehee! awesome conversation.

"Mary Had A Little Storm/Its Sleet Was White As Snow/And Everywhere That Mary Went/All Of The Schools Were Closed"

"I'd call you if I could find my shirt..."

"Do-do-do you wanna spend the night and wake up-up-up under the morning light 'cause I know-ow-ow I'm in lo-o-ove with you."

It's really random when the feelings of insignificance/worry/nauseous come on. I was walking back from school the other day and I even forget what I was thinking of... We'll see if that comes to me in the course of this. I think it was probably anxiousness for Iowa, not feeling like I'm stressed enough (really, is that an actual worry!?), now that I think about it. It's only a month till I'm flying back!

Man, I am soooo ready to be back home. Finally, I'll have new license, a new haircut, a new lease on life for 17 days, nothing to worry about, because all the worry will be behind me! I can be drunk as much as I want!! Count down the days with me, 29!